Don’t Worry, I Will Explain It (Replay)

Don’t Worry, I Will Explain It1 John 3:8 “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”I read this verse and thought, “Nope, I don’t want to go there.”  Actually, I read this verse and then read the next two verses after it.  1 John 3:8-10 says, “Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.  Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.” Ok, after hearing all that do you see why I didn’t want to touch this verse?  First of all, I didn’t really understand it.  If I sin I am a child of the devil?  What does that even mean?  We all sin, don’t we?  Then it says Those born of God do not sin.  But wait, I am born of God and yet I do sin?  It is definitely confusing and not something I felt qualified to talk about. Secondly, I didn’t want someone to hear this verse , or read it in the transcript and then think they weren’t a child of God because they sin.  Because let's all be honest, we all sin.  So, I was happy to skip this one and go on to find another verse.  I felt the Holy Spirit stop me and ask, what does this verse mean?  What if someone already read it and didn’t stop to ask what it means?  What if someone is walking around thinking they are no longer my child just because they sin?I am always humbled when the Holy Spirit reminds me of the purpose for this podcast.  It is not to talk about all the things I understand.  It is not to talk about things I really love talking about.  It is to help myself and you, all those listening, to understand scripture a little better.  My purpose is to help you walk a boldy with Jesus one verse at a time.  The only way to do this is to take difficult scriptures, ones I don’t understand and figure them out, examine them, research them, and then share that with you.  I may not alway get it right, but I do try my best and I ask the Holy Spirit to take care of the rest.  I am sure I will keep needing to be reminded to stop and examine a verse if I don’t understand it because the enemy loves to try and stop me by telling me I am not qualified to talk about the scripture.  He tells me I don’t know what I am doing and so I can’t help others.  Do you see how he takes a kernel of truth and twists it?  He is right, I am not qualified and I don’t always know what the scriptures mean.  However, the way he twists it is because I am not sharing just my thoughts on it. I am researching and looking to those that do know the answers.  I am taking the time to explore the meaning and then sharing what I learned from those that are qualified so that you don’t have to take that time.   If something I say is confusing, or you still don’t understand the verse, I urge you to reach out and let me know.  I would be happy to explore it in more detail with you.  Or you can explore it on your own as well.  I just type “What is the meaning of 1 John 3:8” or whatever verse I am looking at in the search bar on the internet and usually a list of articles come up.  Whatever it is in the Bible we are trying to understand, there are probably plenty of other people that have come before us that have asked the same question.  Look for the answers they found.  I will put the links to two of the articles I read in the show notes in case you want to read the full articles.Now that I explained all that, what did I discover?  What does this confusing verse mean?  From what I found, I understand it to mean that when we are sinning we are a child of Satan, meaning he is influencing those behaviors.  When we are following God’s ways, God is influencing those behaviors.  I feel the Holy Spirit just gave me an analogy that made me smile.  It is one that if you have kids you have probably said it and even if you don’t you probably heard your parents say it.  When our kids are not behaving I tell Tony they are his kids and when they are behaving I say they are my kids.  Of course they are all both of our kids all the time.  However, when I say that I am implying that his DNA is what is influencing the kids misbehavior and my DNA is influencing their good behavior.  It made me smile when this thought came to me because I could just picture God up in heaven shaking his head, looking at Satan and saying, nope, they are your kids today.  I know He doesn’t do this, but it made me smile remember all the times, Tony and I went back and forth, nope, these are your kids.  One thing everything I read agreed on is that this verse is not determining your salvation.  This verse is not saying because you sin you are a child of Satan and you are going to Hell.  That is not the case.  It is not saying if you want to go to heaven you can’t sin.  It is not talking about your salvation in any way.  We are all born with a sinful nature.  Ever since sin enter the world, it has plagued us.  Sin entered the world because of Satan.  He brought it here and when we sin it is because of His influence.  It is because we are allowing his influence to shape our behaviors.  We are cooperating with him.  However, the ending of this verse says, “The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”  This means that although we were born with original sin and a sinful nature, Jesus was sent to destroy that.  If you have been baptized you are received the Holy Spirit living inside of you. Even though we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us we also have Satan trying to influence our behaviors, trying to get us to go against what God says.  One example I found in one of the articles talked about Matthew 16:23 when Jesus said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!” He was revealing the source of Peter's rebuke of Christ by which Peter demonstrated that he was representing Satan's purpose, not God’s.I pray this explanations clears up some of the confusion surrounding this verse.  The verse is not saying you will go to hell if you sin.  It is not saying you belong to Satan if you sin.  It is saying that while you are sinning you are under the influence of Satan.  It is a good reminder as sometimes we can write off little sins.  We can say, that wasn’t so bad.  We can question, is that really a sin, does it really matter.  I think when we read this verse, it can speak to those situations.  If you are sinning you are cooperating with the enemy.  Does it matter if it is a little cooperation or a lot of cooperation, let me ask you this question.  If one of your loved ones was being influenced by someone who was sent here to steal, kill and destroy, would it matter to you that they were only being influenced a little?  God cares deeply about even our smallest decisions.  Instead of being offended by this verse, let’s take it as a warning to try harder not to be influenced by the devil.  Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those who are listening to this episode today.  Lord we want to follow your ways, please help us.  We want to only be influenced by you.  Please help shield us from the influence of the enemy.  Please help us put on your armor Lord.  Lord, I ask you to help each one of us understand what this verse is saying and I ask that if we don’t understand it you will inspire us to go deeper.  Lord, we want to understand your Word.  We thank you for your word and thank you for giving it to us.  You are truly remarkable.  We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus.  I look forward to meeting you here again tomorrow.  I just want to remind all of you, if you haven’t gotten a chance to check out my book yet, I invite you to do so.  Or if you have checked it out I invite you to leave a review on Amazon or suggest it to a friend.  If you didn’t know I wrote a book, you can find it on Amazon.  It is called Total Trust, in God’s Safe Embrace. Thank you for all of you that have already purchased it I truly appreciate it!  Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I.  Have a blessed day!Q. Does 1 John 3:9 Teach that Christians Must Be Sinless?Can a Christian Be of the Devil? - 1 John 3:8, 10 (GraceNotes - no. 60) by Dr. Charlie Bing www.findingtruenorthcoaching.comCLICK HERE TO DONATECLICK HERE to sign up for Mentoring CLICK HERE to sign up for Daily "Word from the Lord" emailsCLICK HERE to sign up for my newsletter & receive a free audio training about inviting Jesus into your daily lifeCLICK HERE to buy my book Total Trust in God's Safe Embrace