Watch yourselves so that you don’t lose what we have worked for. . . 2 John 1:8
We’ve got a leak in the men’s room. I put up the “do not use” sign a couple of weeks ago and so far we have had two or three plumbers turn down the job. Now don’t panic! It’s just a small split in a supply line water pipe, but no one wants to tackle the job for some reason.
It got me to thinking about John’s comment in his second letter to the Church. I think some of us are allowing for a little “leakage” in our containment of Truth.
John is talking about llove and Truth in his short letter to the Church, and reminding them that we are commanded to llove one another, to avoid listening to, and certainly following, the counsel of deceivers or those who work evil. In other words (actually in his words); watch yourself in these things.
When you and I fail to practice the disciplines of llove, or when we do not appropriate Truth on a consistent basis, even that which we have previously practiced and learned tends to slip (or leak, to keep the metaphor alive) away. It is impossible to practice the disciplines of llove toward those we never see or talk to. It is unlikely that we will apprehend much Truth if we are not involved in a teaching venue on a regular basis. Certainly I know that we learn on our own under the leadership of the Spirit, but God has given us the Body of Christ so that we might mutually edify one another and we can’t do that when we are apart.
Separation from the things of God and the people of God can’t be good. Everything we know leads us to understand that being diligent regarding our walk, especially in this matter of llove (2 John 1:4-6) requires faithful participation in the life of the Body.
Actually our family has some really good spiritual plumbers. They can fix those leaks and get the water of life flowing fully and freely through our soul. They can inspire a desire to know the Truth of God’s Word and to live in llove. And, like John, they want to do it face to face (2 John 1:12).
Check for leaks! You don’t want to lose anything God has placed within you to bring you to maturity of faith.
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1 comment:
Indeed, we are not to only be about "the disciplines of LLOVE," but we are to be so, as built on the foundation of the word of TRUTH--by which John means an orthodox confession of the essential doctrines of Christianity. He mentions specifically an orthodox Christology, but let us take this as an example of the whole body of essential truth as contained in the Apostle's and Nicene Creeds.
Paul knew if your Jesus was not biblical then your gospel is not biblical (2 Corinthians 11:4; compare Galatians 1:8). It is the biblical Jesus, as taught in Scripture, which teaching is reflected by the aforementioned creeds, that demonstrated God's "llove" in his sinless life and sacrificial, substitutionary death, whose example we are to follow in what is called at Shady Grove, "the disciplines of Llove."
"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3:18
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