Paul McKenzie

Memory Verse, Friday, October 17, 1 John 5:21, part 4

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. (KJV)

"Dear children, keep yourselves from idols." (NIV)

Well, my pre-goodbyes are gone, and I'm closing this up in the treasure chest of my heart. It will be re-opened many times, which happens often when one has been dwelling long on particular books in Scripture.

Some passages become permanent and oft-used Scriptures in one's walk, and are referred to regurlarly as support passages. For the Holy Spirit can now "bring to remembrance" these passages worked on so diligently this summer.

Probably one of the most helpful things I picked up permanently from this letter was the thought that how I love others is a true gauge on whether I'm loving God or myself. It now has to sink into my heart from my head, and I know from experience that the Holy Spirit will help make that happen.

Another is the assurance that "if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things" (3:20). Guilt from failure by a child of God should not lead to despair, but to motivation to confess our sin, get up and walk again toward the light. The surprise should not be that we failed, but that God has given us a new nature to recognize that we have failed. It means that "we learn to discern" right from wrong, light from darkness, love from self-centeredness, and faith from feeling.

Another gem that has been planted deeper in me is "and this is the confidence that we have from him, that if we ask anything according to his will he heareth us" (5:14). He teaches us through "closet prayer" how to ask, and how to gauge His will by the providential answers or non-answers we see as we walk day-by-day. We understand that the will of God is not some great act or performance, but a daily bread. It is all that we do, from the menial to the complicated.

If every aspect of our lives is centered on, from the moment we awake, having our affections on things above, we are in the will of God. Every work is Christ-based, as we learned from John 6:29, that "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent"

And, in closing the little phrase "Little children, keep yourselves from idols", is a great reminder that, when we look down instead of up, we risk the danger of being led astray, walking into, as John Bunyan put it so well allegorically in the Pilgrim's Progress, "Bypath Meadow". Temptation seems so rosy at first, but ends with a cage and "Giant Despair". But all the while we have a key called "Promise" in our pocket, and we can be free by simply setting our affections again on things above, "where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God" (Colossians 3:1).

For a believer is indeed risen with Christ and this book was written "unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God" (5:13).

Let's leave this book with 5:20: "and we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life."

And the final note in 21: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen."

Today if you hear His voice, harden not your heart.

*Scriptures from the KJV unless noted*

Memory Helps:

"Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen." (KJV)

I hope you've been working on this all summer, verse-by-verse. If you ever have 15 minutes where you don't know what to do, maybe sitting in a doctor's office, or eating lunch; pull out the Bible on your phone and read through the letter again. It only takes about 15 minutes, and you have now spent those typically wasted minutes nourishing yourself with the Word of God. And you'll find it will bring back many pleasant devotional memories. (and probably make you a better patient at the doctor's office, lol!)