1st John 2:24-29

1 John 2:24-29 “As for you, let that abide in you, which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. This is the promise, which He Himself made to us: eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.

As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

Now little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”

“Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.” What are the basic Christian doctrines?

1. Christ is God’s Son
2. He died for our sins
3. He was raised from the dead to give us new life
4. He will return and establish His Kingdom

John is encouraging them to hold onto the basics; the things they learned first. Nothing else you learn after this, if it’s true, will contradict those things.
Verses 26 and 27 really talk about the fact that as believers we have the Holy Spirit inside us and He is teaching us. When we listen to preachers and teachers, not only do we compare what they say to scripture, but also to what the Holy Spirit tells us.

Verse 28: the best way to prepare for Christ’s return is to live with Him everyday. To never forget His presence.

A commentator wrote, “We will all be called out of this world sometime and if we’ve never thought about God we will go and meet a stranger and it will be scary, but if we’ve walked with Christ and prayed to He and God and stayed in the Word, then we will really be going home and it will merely be entry into a nearer presence with God and Jesus.”

How we feel about that day depends on how we live now.

And again, in the last verse, what we say we believe shows by our actions.

1st John 2:22-23

1 John 2:22-23 “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a man is the antichrist—he denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

Here’s where we get back to all the religions that say, “But, we’re all praying to the same God, there’s just different ways to get to Him.”

First you have to believe Jesus is who He said He is: the Divine Son of God. He fulfilled all the scriptures. If you believe He who He said He is then the rest is easy. Because He also said He is the way and the only way.

God chose sending His Son to earth as His means of revealing Himself to us and also a way of opening the barrier between man and God caused by sin and if we refuse Jesus and everything He said as truth – then we refuse God.

It is our reaction to Jesus that our relationship with God depends. Earlier in this study we learned about the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament and that God forgave the people because they had faith that what He told them about the sacrifices was true. Same thing here. God says He forgives our sins if we confess them and believe in Christ.