The Shell

Hello and welcome to Beauty – the no-frills, no-nonsense podcast about all things beauty. True beauty. God’s beauty. I am your host, Deanna, and I do not apologize that it took us almost an entire two weeks to get through 1 John 3. I could have shortened it, for sure – but I didn’t want to rush the rich lessons, so thank you for sticking with me as we have come to the final two verses in the chapter. John has a lot to say to his readers and we have a lot to learn, so let's dig in! I love all things chocolate - and when peanut butter is swirled in, it takes chocolate to the next level. When I was younger, mom used to have these “splurge” moments at the grocery store. When I was with her in one of those moments, I fully took advantage of it and added a tub of chocolate peanut butter ice cream and a bottle of magic chocolate shell to the cart. I loved nothing more than squirting that chocolate on top of the ice cream, letting it harden, and then digging in. There is something terribly satisfying about cracking a hard shell of chocolate on top of a soft bowl of ice cream. I would save some of the bigger pieces of chocolate shell and eat them last, and it was pure delight. We aren’t here to talk about ice cream, though talking about it makes me foresee it in my near future. But, I will focus right now, and talk about 1 John 3: 23-24. Yesterday we saw how we can have confidence in Christ. We can be confident in him, and we can go confidently to him. The only prerequisite is to know him, love him, and obey him. I don’t think I did a good job about explaining this yesterday, so I will go back to that for just a moment today. It doesn’t hurt a bit because it also helps us understand these last two verses of chapter three. Satan was waging war against the church and John was trying to help his readers see that they can have confidence in God. He wanted them to know that God is bigger than their heart. It is pleasing to God for us to go to him in prayer and he wants to give us that which we ask for because we keep his commandments. We have to remember the “keep his commandments” part. His commandments extend beyond “love God and love others.” Remember, we have to read scripture as a whole. And the reason I encourage you to not only read scripture, but also to write it out is so that you write scripture on your heart; so that you can recall it and use it to connect the dots as you read and study and learn. Take a minute to flip your bible to the left, and read Matthew 16:24. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” You should probably write that one down too… When we go to God, we can do so confidently and expectantly, but he won’t give us the material things we desire because, as children of God, we probably won’t desire them (since we have denied ourselves and all…). Our prayers our powerful when they are focused on God - his will, his kingdom, and his glory - not our own. Verse 23 takes this further by spelling out two commandments – believe in Jesus and love one another. Believing in Jesus takes knowledge of who he is and trusting that he is who he says he is. I mean, how can we confidently go to a God we don’t really know? When we accept him as Lord and Savior of our life, we also accept what he would do with our life – which could be something radically different than we anticipated, prior to knowing him. Believing in Jesus takes a certain level of faith, even before faith is nurtured and grown. So, the first and greatest thing we can do is to have a simple faith in trusting Jesus, and before we can obey the next command, we must obey the first. This is one of those both/and situations – not either/or. It is really one command with two parts. The second part is to love others. Do you feel like John is beating a dead horse here? I do – which means it is a message he doesn’t want us to miss. Love. Is. Critical. As you already know, I am a simple girl. Everything about me is simple (except my anxiety), so I appreciate John’s simplicity. There are no long lists to consider. No complicated tasks to remember. No fear of forgetting and no need for a post-it note reminder. Just two things – trust in Jesus and love people. When we do these two things, we know we are children of God because we can only do these things by staying near to him, walking in obedience, and loving well. This is the shell of our faith. It isn’t a magic chocolate ice cream topping that you can crack. It is a sturdy shell of faith, filled with the Holy Spirit, who guides us on a beautiful journey this side of heaven and into the presence of the one who saved us in the first place. Tell me about your shell of faith - and maybe your favorite ice cream, too. D 🙂 Get full access to Shining.Our.Light at deannakohlhofer.substack.com/subscribe