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Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday, and I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time
Devotions. I am talking to you today from Kigali, Rwanda, 1 John chapter 5.
We're going to be looking at this entire chapter from Rwanda this week.

I thought somehow it would be deeply appropriate to look at 1 John chapter 5
from Rwanda where you know in 1994 there was a genocide that took a million
people in the population. And if you talk to the Christian leaders who are here,
they realize how deeply the Church of Jesus Christ needed to stand up in that
moment and was not able to. And that if the Church of Jesus Christ had done what
we're going to talk about in 1 John chapter 5, had made the choice to love one
another, even in difficult times, there would have been a tragedy, but it
wouldn't have been as great a tragedy.

That's the difference that the Church can make. That's the difference that our
love can make, not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of our entire
community. So what does the Bible have to say about love?

We've been walking through it in 1 John as in we reach chapter 5, we reach this
chapter that's all about the assurance that God wants to give into our daily
lives. Let me read for you 1 John chapter 5 verses 1 to 5. "Everyone who
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the
Father loves his child as well.

This is how we know that we love the children of God, by loving God and carrying
out his commands. This is love for God, to obey his commands, and his commands
are not burdensome. For everyone born of God overcomes the world.

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that
overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.

" He starts and ends with the same assurance about believing that Jesus is the
Son of God. These are verses written for assurance, deep personal assurance to
everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. And look at what he says
here in these first five verses.

He talks about a process that happens in our lives because we're a child of God.
In verse 1 he says, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of
God. " It's what Jesus talked about in John chapter 3.

We have a new birth, we have a new life. God gives you a new life when you come
to Jesus Christ. The moment you made a decision to begin a relationship with
Jesus Christ, God gave you that new life.

Now, I'm spending the rest of my life, you're spending the rest of your life
learning to live out that new life, but the moment you began your relationship
with God in Christ, you received that new life. You are born of God. And so the
last half of verse 1 he says this, "Everyone who loves the Father loves the
child as well.

" If I love God, that means I'm going to love God's children. Because if I'm in
a family and I love the father of the family, it only follows that if I'm doing
the right thing, we don't always do the right thing, but if I'm doing the right
I'm going to love the children in that family. John has told us again and again
as we've walked through 1 John that one of the natural outgrowths of my love for
God is my love for other believers.

And it's through my love for God and my love for other believers that I'm
empowered to love everyone in the world. If I think that somehow I can love
other people, people who do not yet know Christ without loving other believers,
John is telling us that's just not going to work. Because the natural outgrowth
of love for the father is love for his children and then love for other people
to come into the family.

So John is walking us through this process. If I believe that Jesus is the
Christ, that's not just intellectual assent. That is deep personal soul belief.

That is trust that he is the Christ. He is the promised one from God. If I
believe that, then I am born of God.

I have a new birth. And then I love God's children because I'm in this new
family. And then he goes on and he says, how can you know?

How can you know that you're loving? You know, he says, by loving God and by
carrying out his commands. How do we know that we love the children of God?

By loving God and carrying out his commands. It's reciprocal. I show that I love
God by loving his children and I show that I love his children by loving God.

And then he goes to God's commands. Love for God, he says, is expressed in that
I carry out his commands in my everyday life. Obedience is the proof of love.

Now, I know many people have questions about this. They think, wait a minute,
love for God is shown by carrying out his commands. Does that mean that somehow
I'm saved?

I begin a relationship with God by the good things that I do, the works that I
do? No. The new works, the obedience grows out of your love for God.

It's a response because of your love for God. You don't learn to love God by
trying to obey his commands. That would just be very, very frustrating.

No, you respond to your love for God by obeying his commands. A baby is born.
Breathing is a proof of life.

It's a sign of life for that new baby. But until that baby is born, it cannot
breathe. It's not going to breathe while it's in the womb.

And you and I, as believers in Christ, when we are born, we have this new life.
We begin to breathe. And spiritual breathing, he's saying here, the sign of life
is that we do the things that God tells us to do.

Why? Because we love him. Because we love him.

Love for God is carrying out his commands. How do we know that we're loving? By
loving God and doing what he says.

Then John goes to another very deep, very important question. He says, how do I
know that it's God's commands that I'm following? You see, all kinds of people
make up commands.

People in church make up commands. People in your life make up commands. In
fact, when Jesus came, he talked to a group of people who were following all
kinds of commands from God, the Pharisees.

But they made up those commands. They weren't really from God. They just thought
they were.

So how do I know that the commands that I'm following are from God? Well, there
are two ways. First of all, you check God's word.

You make sure that you found them in God's word. They're not what some person
has said. They're what God has taught us in his word.

That's how you know practically that they're from God. But then there's also a
personal way that you know that they're from God. And he reveals it here.

He says, when it comes to the commands of God, his commands are not burdensome.
They're not overwhelming. They are overcoming.

They're not burdensome. They bring joy into my life. And if you are trying with
all your heart and all your might and all your strength to live out the commands
of God, and they just feel like one great big burden on your life, these verses
reveal something is wrong.

Something is wrong. Either the commands that you're trying to follow are wrong.
There's some human command that somebody has made up, or they are God's
commands, but you're trying to live them out on your own power.

You're trying to live them out by yourself. You and I need God's commands in our
lives, but we also need to live them out on God's power. And I know that I'm
living out God's commands by God's power when they're not burdensome.

His commands, I love this verse. His commands are not burdensome. In fact,
instead of that, they overcome the world.

This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Everyone born
of God overcomes the world. And who is the one who overcomes the world?

Even the one who believes in Jesus Christ. Love for God is carrying out his
commands. This is the only proof of love.

But I know I'm following his commands when instead of there being a burden,
there's joy in my life. Now, I'm not saying that it's always easy to follow
God's commands. I'm not saying that I don't stumble sometimes in following God's
commands, but I am saying that when I do, when I make that choice to do what God
has asked me to do, the result is not burden.

The result is deep joy. The result is not feeling overwhelmed by the world
around me. The result is feeling like God has given in my life an overcoming
power, a power that looks forward to eternity so that no matter what happens in
this world, I know that I can look forward to what he has.

So I'm sitting here in Rwanda thinking about some of the tragedies that have
happened here. As you sit here today and talk to people today, you can see in
believers' lives this overcoming power, this sense that, yes, difficult things
happened in this world, but also, yes, God is at work in this world. Both of
those things can be true at the same time.

The fact that difficult things happened in this world does not keep God from
working. In fact, that's why he's at work in this world. Maybe the problem
you're facing right now isn't as big as a country, but it's big to you.

It's something you're facing in your life today, and you need to know that God
has put a love into your life that helps you to love him, to love his children,
to have the power and strength to follow him. And as you follow him to discover
the kind of life where instead of feeling overwhelmed, you feel like I am
overcoming by his power, I do have the strength to live out the life that he has
given me to live. What does it mean to overcome the world?

Where does that all start? Well, John began and he ended in these verses with
the same thing. It's all about believing, trusting, trusting in Jesus Christ.

So let's take a few moments in prayer to do that right now. Jesus Christ, we
trust you. We trust that even though the circumstances of life do not always
work out like we would want, you still will give us overcoming power,
overwhelming power.

We trust that even though people around us make choices that hurt us and others,
you will give us power to live out the kind of life that you want us to live.
And we trust Jesus that even though we sometimes make choices, I make choices
that are the wrong choice. You will forgive.

And because I am your child, you will give me the strength to live out your
commands and be the person that you want me to be. You will give me overcoming
power. Jesus, we trust you in this.

In your name. Amen. Well, I invite you to join us tomorrow as we continue to
talk about 1 John chapter 5 here from Rwanda.

We're going to be talking about verses six to 12, the testimony that God has
given us about Jesus.