1 John 5:17  [17] “All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.” The question is often asked, “Does the Bible say this is wrong?” Or, you might have heard this one, “Where in the Bible does it say that this is sin?” Usually these questions are attached to hard subjects with little reference to them, if any at all. They are gray areas that most would rather avoid than try to answer. Others feel that if they cannot find a chapter and verse that spells it out in black and white, they can automatically assume that …

1 John 5:16  [16] “If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it.” Three people in the Bible come to mind whenever I think about sinning a sin unto death. Moses was the meekest man in all the earth, but his patience ran thin, and he allowed the bad behavior of others to affect him. His disobedience to God cost him the promise …

1 John 5:15  [15] “And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” I thought about a certain prayer request that was on my heart. It was not something that I desired for myself, but for the church that I pastor. I’ll be honest, the petition looked impossible. In fact, my flesh told me repeatedly that there was no way it would be granted. In spite of my flesh, my Father said to me, pray. I sought God about it, earnestly asking him to answer the …

1 John 5:14 [14] “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:” Learning to pray is a blessing, but learning to pray with confidence is an even greater blessing. Every believer faces battles in prayer. If we are not careful, we will get discouraged in our praying, and lose confidence. This causes us either to abandon the prayer closet altogether, or pray defeated prayers that never amount to anything.  God not only wants us to pray, but he wants us to pray with confidence. He …

1 John 5:13 [13] “These things have I 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.” John is going to bring this epistle to a close very soon. He emphasizes in our verse that he has written to believers, “these things”, so that they will know that they have eternal life. His purpose is clear, and the content of his epistle has been just as convincing. The things he has given, will help …

1 John 5:12 [12] “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” When I read this verse, there are three things that comes to my mind, nearly every time. Those thoughts are: what a person, what a possession and what a problem. I don’t know if you see them in the verse, but they stand out quite vividly to me. Let’s look at them for our devotional thought today. First, notice what a wonderful person is in this verse. John is still talking about Jesus. Jesus, the Son of …

1 John 5:11 [11] “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” This verse is another one of my favorite verses in this epistle. There are several reasons why I love this verse, and I want to share them with you in our devotional for today. I believe you will agree with me, and I trust they will help you, as much as they have helped me.  The first reason is because of the start of this verse. It begins with John declaring that there is a record. This …

1 John 5:10  [10] “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.” The key word in this verse is the word, “believeth”. John mentions it three times in our text. We know that Christ is the only door to heaven. He declared this truth himself in the gospel of John. In order for someone to get to heaven, they must go through the door. They must go through the Lord Jesus Christ. All …

1 John 5:9 [9] “If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.” Why is it so easy for us to believe man and so difficult for us to believe God? Do you ever find yourself in this condition? We have so much faith in some people that we hardly ever second guess what they say. People will often say about others who they have confidence in, “If he tells you something, you can believe it”. They might even say something like, …

1 John 5:8 [8] “And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.” I want to call to the witness stand of life three earthly witnesses. These witnesses are found in the verse before us. They are the Spirit, the water and the blood. They witnessed in the life of Jesus while he was on this earth, and they witness in the life of every believer as well. The Spirit was at his baptism, and led him into the wilderness. The water proved both the birth …