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NASB | 1 John 2:3 ¶ By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 1 John 2:3 ¶ And this is how we know [daily, by experience] that we have come to know Him [to understand Him and be more deeply acquainted with Him]: if we habitually keep [focused on His precepts and obey] His commandments (teachings). |
Subject: Walk as He walked |
Bible Note: Tim, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” (John 14:15) implies that keeping—doing--His commandments is required to love Jesus. Since Jesus is the Law, and since apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5) doing the Law flows from loving Christ in return; therefore not doing the Law--breaking any of the 10 commandments--is to fail to love Christ (1 John 2:4; 4:20). This might sound like a prescription for “doing” over “loving”, for “works-righteousness;” but the act of keeping a commandment--the moral law--strengthens our faith. Action is to faith what exercise is to the body: what we don’t use (our loving faith) we can lose. 2 quotations say it better: “People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing.’ …I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself.” C.S. Lewis “Mere Christianity “ "If a certain character of mind, a certain state of the heart and affections, be necessary for entering heaven, our actions will avail for our salvation, chiefly as they tend to produce or evidence this frame of mind. Good works (as they are called) are required, not as if they had anything of merit in them, not as if they could of themselves turn away God's anger for our sins, or purchase heaven for us, but because they are the means, under God's grace, of strengthening and showing forth that holy principle which God implants in the heart, and without which (as the text tells us) we cannot see Him. The more numerous are our acts of charity, self-denial, and forbearance, of course the more will our minds be schooled into a charitable, self-denying, and forbearing temper. The more frequent are our prayers, the more humble, patient, and religious are our daily deeds, this communion with God, these holy works, will be the means of making our hearts holy, and of preparing us for the future presence of God. Outward acts, done on principle, create inward habits. I repeat, the separate acts of obedience to the will of God, good works as they are called, are of service to us, as gradually severing us from this world of sense, and impressing our hearts with a heavenly character." J.H. Newman "Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Hebrews 7:14. |