Much Internet bandwidth is consumed these days by individuals expressing what they think someone else should do. Despite having incomplete information, we spell out exactly how we think a situation should be handled or how a decision should be made…or why someone else’s choice was – in our own minds – the wrong one.
In the end, though, it’s usually not our call. I don’t set Federal Reserve interest rates, for instance, nor do I get to specify the cost of electricity coming into my house. In the same way, a small child may protest, “I want to go home” from the back seat, but their opinion is subject to the [hopefully] more mature will of the parent who is driving.
Ultimately, God is the one who determines the condition of our heart, and if He says we are practicing righteousness and loving others as we should, that’s the truth. However, God does help us understand how we are doing (versus His holy standards) in different ways. Let’s consider what John wrote about that in the first epistle from him that we have in the Bible.
This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him.
1 John 3:19-22 NIV
Let’s not forget the preceding verses here, like 1 John 3:17-18, pointing out how we must love “with actions and in truth”. If followers of Jesus know that our claimed love for others is a lie, and we’re just saying that we love others without actually living out the love of God, we can expect some “disquiet” or “restlessness” in our hearts, when we know that we’re not actually loving others like we say we love them. God knows the truth, though, no matter how well we might think that we have hidden it from other people. The good news is that He offers conviction (and sometimes discipline) as an act of love for His children. Even if it is uncomfortable, these acts of God’s love encourage us to acknowledge that something isn’t right within us, and they should remind us to do better (even if that’s only because we don’t like the discomfort that results from living a lie).
And, when we do respond appropriately to God’s loving correction, loving others as He loved us and following His commands (as best as we can, and with His help), we find a peace that comes from the resulting integrity in our lives. That peace is a gift from God, although I think that some of it is also just the blessings of living as He created us to walk in the first place!
In fact, a life lived in step with Him results in us receiving what we ask from Him. Now, let’s not distort this into, “do good things and get whatever you want from God”. As I see it, when we give our lives completely over to God, we choose to yield our will to His. So, what we want aligns more and more with what He wants. When that is true, what we ask for is what God wants to give us, and it is natural that He will do so as a result.
Consider Matthew 7:7-12, where Jesus shared the well-known instructions about “Ask, Seek, Knock” and what many call the “Golden Rule”. In-between these teachings (and perhaps all part of the same message), is an example of how God knows best how to bless us. Showing the love to others that we seek for ourselves (as illustrated by the “Golden Rule”), when done in alignment with God’s truth about what true love looks like, helps keep us aligned with God, so that our asking, seeking, and knocking results in receiving, finding, and the opening of doors.
When some people think that following Jesus is boring and we never get to ask for anything good, they miss the reality of how much God loves us, and the fact that He wants good things for us. So we can ask for good things for ourselves that are in His will…and we can receive them. The difference, we might say, is that what we ask for in God’s will and receive from Him doesn’t come with the nasty side effects of sinful choices, or even the “right things” at the wrong time.
There is great joy, fun, blessing, and reward to be found in God’s will. We just have to remember that, 1) He is the one who defines good, evil, love, hate, and all manner of other important behaviors (regardless of our opinions about those things), and 2) He loves us so much that He wants good things for us (along with the rest of humankind that He created). That sounds a lot better than the alternative!
From Sunday School lesson prepared for March 2, 2025
References:
- 1717 Bible Studies, 1, 2, and 3 John, © 2025 Christian Standard Media.
- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
- The College Press NIV Commentary – 1, 2 & 3 John, by Morris M. Womack. © 1998 College Press Publishing Co.
Those Who Sin Differently 