Category Archives: 1 John

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.

1 John 2:15-16

Dear God, so what does the world offer me? I was watching an interview with the singer/songwriter James Taylor recently and the interviewer asked him about this addictions. He had a unique answer about what gives an addiction its power over you: The key for an addict is how much of a relief the addict felt when they first discovered their drug of choice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way before. What pain did the alcohol, meth, weed, cocaine, food, pornography, etc. mask when the addict first experienced it, and how good effective was the experience in taking the pain away (albeit temporarily)?

In this context, I think that a lot of what the world offers is designed to mask pain/fear. We pursue money because we don’t want to have to worry about our needs and we want to indulge our wants. As for me, my comfort is found in food. Somewhere along the way, I found comfort in treating myself to the kinds of food that I like. Ironically, the time in my life that I had the most pain was a time that I actually dove into exercise and hyper controlling my eating. I think I felt so powerless in some areas that I actually went the other way and grabbed control of something I could. As I understand it, that is the motivation behind most eating disorders.

Father, I am an amateur in all of this in terms of knowledge, but I know enough to know that you didn’t design us to live pain-free lives in this fallen world. We are to bring our pain to you, trust you in it, and then ask what you would have us do to live you and live others. Help me to do that today.

In Jesus’ name I pray,

Amen

1 John 2:1-2 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world. 

Dear God, I wish I had the kind of relationship with you where I could KNOW if some of the thoughts I have are of you or not. I woke up this morning with a sad, maybe you could even call it an alarming, thought about a relative. It was a new interpretation of something they told me a couple of weeks ago. Was our conversation a secret message that they needed help and I missed it? My wife says you tend to speak to me in my dreams. Is that what you did this morning? Were you nudging me?

Look at all of the question marks in that last sentence. This is what I’m talking about when it comes to wishing I could hear directly from you in audible, unmistakable words. I’m assuming that you don’t give us that ability on a regular basis because we can’t handle it (yes, I believe there are people who have the gift of prophesy which would be hearing directly from you, but even that isn’t 24/7, and they don’t have 100% accuracy in how they interpret what you say in their lives), but I wish there was a way that made things more obvious for me. 

I say all of this in relation to this verse because I fear something happened to this person where they made a mistake that needs your redemption, but they don’t know how to seek it or ask for it. So that is my prayer right now. Father, I pray that a couple of people about whom I am thinking right now will embrace the sacrifice you made, let go of their sins, receive your forgiveness, live in your redemption and freedom, and embrace your commands. I pray that your power would flow through them and that you would transform them into people who are worshippers of you, letting go of their burdens and embracing the yoke that you have for them to carry. And I pray the same thing for myself. I am sorry for the hundreds of times I fail you in my thoughts and in my words–in what I have done and what I have failed to do. Thank you for your death and resurrection through Jesus Christ, my Lord. I will worship you as best I can. 

By the power that his shed and resurrected blood I pray,

Amen