"Testifying to the Word of life proves it"

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

John is credited with writing 5 books of the Bible. The gospel of John written to convert sinners; he wrote the epistles of John to confirm the saints; and he wrote the book of Revelation to the coronation of the Savior.

Johns purpose for writing is found in John 20:31

John 20:31 ESV

31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John further gives his reason for writing at the beginning of Revelation 1:19

Revelation 1:19 ESV

19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.

1 John has four keys that are scattered throughout the five chapters and 105 verses that help us to unlock this letter.

1 John 1:4 John says: “he wrote to promote full joy in the family of God.

In 2:1 he says “he wrote to prevent sin in the family of God.”

And in 5:13 he says, “his purpose was to provide assurance of salvation in the family of God.

INTRODUCTION

The author begins his letter by establishing himself as an eyewitness to Jesus, the “word of life.” Look at the tenses of the “we” verbs in the first three verses that vary indiscriminately between the perfect aorist, and present. There are 10 of these verbs:

Heard; seen; looked upon; saw; testify; proclaim; and are writing.

What Would it Take for A Humanist to Believe in God?

Douglas Murray is a prolific humanist writer and social critic who has authored two bestselling books. He finds himself in the odd position of being a self-professed non-believer who nevertheless has great respect for Christianity and the positive role it has played in building Western civilization--to the point of calling himself a “Christian atheist.”

On an episode of the Unbelievable podcast, Murray was asked, “Why don’t you just believe in God?” His response has always been that he genuinely finds it difficult to accept certain aspects of the Christian argument. Belief in God, he noted, cannot be faked or forced.

Esther O’Reilly, also a guest on the program, noted that if men are rational animals, then God must deal with them as such. Therefore, there can be evidence that fully satisfies man’s search for these truths, both intellectually and spiritually, as opposed to requiring a blind leap of faith. The historical reliability of the New Testament, for instance, is one such piece of evidence, since it attests to the truth of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. This evidence is available to all who wish to judge it, point by point.

The host of the program, Justin Brierley, asked Murray what it would take for him to make a return to faith in God and Christianity. Murray said “I think I’d need to hear a voice.” Brierley asked “Literally a voice from beyond?” “Oh yes,” he replied, “I mean it literally.”

He admitted to being fascinated by the lack of such experiences in the West when compared to places like the Middle East or Africa. He also cited the utter incredulity with which Christians in the West treat individuals who claim to have had such experiences. He said, “this has historically been one of the ways in which religion has thrived, in visions.” What John wants us to know is that God has given us evidence for belief in him

through creation (Psa. 19:1-6 “The heavens declare the very glory of God, the sky above proclaim his handiwork; Rom 1:4),

through fulfilled prophecy (Isa. 7:14; Micah 5:2), and

through the resurrection of Christ (John 20:1-9; Rom. 1:4) to name a few. But there are many who simply choose not to believe

What is clear from this array of language is a claim to authority. This is a testimony of works of experience. The writer is making it clear of the prerequisite of speaking out on the subject of Jesus Christ.

Note: “The word of Life,” and “Life” (v.1 and 2), plus fellowship twice (v.3). So, the authority that John claims to have comes from that which was “from the beginning” which results in “life” and produces “fellowship.”

Big Idea: The word of life fills the void of our joy.

3 Questions we must ask to experience this Real Life

1. Do you have a passion for Knowing this Life?

Note: Notice that 1 John begins his letter by establishing himself as an eyewitness to Jesus, the “word of life.” That which was from the beginning… So, this life fills the void before the Civil War, before the Roman Empire, before creation. From the beginning it has existed in the person of Jesus Christ.

The second thing we notice in verse two is that this life is eternal. Therefore, once you have experienced it, it will last forever.

*CHRIST IS OUR LIFE

Note: What do we mean when we say “Christ is our Life?”

Notice that Christ is simply called “the life”. “The life was made manifest.” It was Christ who was made manifest. Christ appeared in human form. But as 1 John 5:11-12 says, “God gave us eternal life, and this life was in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the son of God does not have life.” So the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is our life. When we have fellowship with him, we share in that life.

This Life is From the Beginning

John 1:1-18 Gives us the qualities of this word of life from the beginning.

All things are made through Him

In Him was life

This life is the light of men

The Light shines in the darkness but, it has not overcome it.

The true light gives light to everyone

To those who believe in him he gave the right to become children of God.

The children of God are born not of flesh but of God (spirit)

WHY IS GOD IN FLESH SO PARAMOUNT TO OUR THEOLOGY

Our life has eternally existed with the Father. “That which was from the beginning” means, Christ our life was there when creation began.

He is eternal. He had no beginning. He will have no ending.

He is not part of creation. In the beginning he is the very source of creation. “All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17-18)

John clearly makes the claim to have touched what was from the beginning, the ancient of days, namely, the manifestation of eternal life. This means he must appear in flesh. Notice how Jesus freely walked among the people allowing people to physically touch him.

When Jesus appeared to Thomas and the other disciples he encouraged them to touch him to receive the proof of his resurrection.

People in general are willing to believe in Christ as long as you keep him some spiritual reality. However, when you preach that Christ became a particular man, born at a particular time, from a particular virgin, and died our death for us on a particular cross exposing the particular sins and then dying on a particular cross it ceases to be acceptable for people to believe.

Note: The greatest stumbling block throughout history for people submitting their lives to Christ is the doctrine of the incarnation. God became a man and walked among us. People have stumbled over this from the day’s of John until our own time. Why is this such a big stumbling block for the world?

John 8:58 ESV

58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

In John 10:30 Jesus says, “The Father and I are one.” And in John 14:9 He told Philip, “The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.” This life is the life of undiminished deity in the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth.

John Piper - calls it the stumbling block of the incarnation (Eternal Life).

John makes four declarations of this “Word of Life”

1. We have heard Him with our ears.

We must be careful that to what and whom we are listening to for our theology.

Theology: is the study of God, his character, nature, and his relationship to the world.

2. We saw Him with our eyes.

Note: John states this three times in the text for emphasis. So, to gaze upon the Son of Man had to be an incredibly compelling and awe inspiring testimony.

Think about it, it’s one thing to hear what someone is saying, but, another thing to observe it taking place right in front of your eyes.

3. We touched Him with our hands.

He was real flesh and blood, no ghost or phantom spirit. (the disciples actually placed their hands in his nail scared hands, and felt the wound in his side where blood and water flowed.)

4. We testified and declared (both in the present tense)

Note: John continues to use repetition. Twice he says the eternal life was manifested to us in Jesus Christ. He presents for anyone to consider an audible, visible, and tangible witness concerning Jesus.

Theologically speaking it is of paramount importance that we understand the essential nature of the incarnation. “The word became flesh as John describes in in John 1:14. “And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”

The Word is the antidote for sin and death in the world

Insulin Brought Life to the Dying Before the discovery of insulin, diabetes was a death sentence. Here’s the life-saving story of how scientists discovered insulin. The American Diabetes Association reports: In 1889, two German researchers, Oskar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering, found that when the pancreas gland was removed from dogs, the animals developed symptoms of diabetes and died soon afterward. This led to the idea that the pancreas was the site where “pancreatic substances” (insulin) were produced. In 1910, Sir Edward Sharpey-Shafer suggested only one chemical was missing from the pancreas in people with diabetes. He decided to call this chemical insulin. So what happened next? In 1921, a young surgeon named Frederick Banting and his assistant Charles Best figured out how to remove insulin from a dog’s pancreas. Skeptical colleagues said the stuff looked like “thick brown muck,” but little did they know this would lead to life and hope for millions of people with diabetes. With this murky concoction, Banting and Best kept another dog with severe diabetes alive for 70 days. The dog died only when there was no more to extract. With this success, the researchers went a step further. A more refined and pure form of insulin was developed, this time from the pancreases of cattle. In January 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old boy dying from diabetes in a Toronto hospital, became the first person to receive an injection of insulin. Within 24 hours, Leonard’s dangerously high blood glucose levels dropped to near-normal levels. The discovery of insulin, brought life to those near death, giving hope to those at death’s door. We are all sick with sin but the discovery of the gospel and Christ Jesus brings life, and hope.

Before Jesus brought the word of Life death was at the doorstep of all creation.

Many are willing to believe in Christ as long as he remains merely a spiritual reality.

THE STUMBLING BLOCK

The stumbling block is that if we take hold of the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ as true, then every single person in the world must obey this one particular Jewish man.

Everything he says is law. Everything he did is perfect. And the particularity of his work and word flow out of history in the form of a particular inspired book, (written in particular languages of Greek and Hebrew) that claim the universal authority over every other book that has ever been written.

If the Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses, reporting supernatural events that took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claimed their writings are Divine and not of human origin.

Even through the Bible is scientifically and historically accurate, neither science nor history can prove the Bible is what it says it is. However, using the the method of evidence, the Bible has been used in court and is of reliable witnesses whose stories corroborate each other.

It is 66 books in 3 languages, (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic) written by 40 authors, spanning 3 continents and over 1,500 years with one central message, and has been corroborated by 23,000 archaeological digs. Therefore, it is rational and logical to believe that the Bible is true.

Voddie Baucham

“Why I Choose to Believe the Bible is true. Why do you believe that what the Bible say’s can be trusted as truth?

That is the way I was raised.

I tried it and it worked for me.

The problem with both of these responses is that they rely on personal experience. Other people have different experiences or were taught different things. Who’s to say which is right?

When God became a man, man ceases to be the measure of all things, and this man becomes the measure of things that are right, true, and good. This simply is intolerable to the rebellious heart of men and women in our culture today. The incarnation is a violation to the bill of human autonomy.

The Danger of basing our relationship on shared experience not shared theology

People who say they have little use for doctrine or theology have little use for the Bible.

The Great Danger of The Charismatic Movement

There is an attempt withing the charismatic movement to base our fellowship among believers on a shared experience rather than on the basis of a shared theology.

This is not the Biblical way, and will result eventually in poorly formed Christians who base everything on their feelings and emotions leading to heretical theology.

Human beings are emotional creatures. We love or hate, fell happy or sad, angry or joyful. We fall into a dangerous place when we allow our emotions to form our thoughts about God and not His Holy Word. This is putting feelings before sound doctrine. There is a kind of stoicism, where faith is rooted in theology but void of any affection. This tendency removes feelings all together.

It is vital that our faith leads us to a deep experience with the triune God of the Bible. The Church needs people who are passionate about knowing the Christ who is our Life. We should hate sin and love righteousness. We are not people who only know truth academically, we also are people who deeply experience truth that governs and guides our lives.

Note: I would argue that what John is giving us here is not merely and emotional experience but, visible verifiable evidence of the God man. John is referring to a first hand hearing of the proclamation of Jesus Christ.

2. Do you have a passion for Sharing this Life

Growth and Decline of Christianity In 1900, two thirds of Christians lived in Europe and Russia; by 2000, three fifths of them will live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. While Westerners cease to be practicing Christians at a rate of seventy-six hundred per day, Africa is gaining four thousand Christians per day through conversion from other religions, and three times that many through the birth rate.

Why do you think so many practicing Christians in Western Culture are falling away? I believe it is because gathering with the body of Christ in fellowship has taken a back seat to everything else going on in our lives. It is expendable and lacks priority for this generation and the next. We are raising a generation that see’s Church as a social construct that is only important if it fits in with the schedule of my life.

When is the last time that you have scheduled everything else going on in your life around the gathering of the fellowship of Christ. What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the Bride of Christ. And we wonder why our lives are falling apart, and we feel detached from God and his plan for our lives.

Why is it increasing in places like Africa and China, because these people have been deprived of Christian fellowship in their lives for so long that they are HUNGRY for community. What would be different in your life if the Journey stopped meeting today and ceased to exist?

I remember Easter Sunday two years ago when COVID was in full swing and Churches were mandated not to gather. I sat in the front room of our house to deliver my Easter message. My heart ached and was heavy in my chest. Why you might ask, because I longed to be with the body. Remember how Paul when he was in prison ached in his soul and spirit to be with the Church.

Note: The impact that Jesus had on this rag tag band of disciples put into words was radically life changing. These disciples would literally turn the world upside down. This life changing reality compelled them to take the gospel to the nations. What was at the center of this movement? The regular fellowship and community they had.

In the beginning Adam and Eve were placed in the garden to enjoy friendship and communion with God. When the creature chose to assert his own autonomy rather than live under the creator’s gracious care, fellowship was broken. Therefore, Adam and Eve hid themselves from the Lord’s presence.

Yet, God immediately sought them out and revealed his plan for the ultimate restoration of sinners through the work of the Redeemer in Genesis 3:15 “Where God declared that one would come who would crush the serpent.

The OT began to tell about how God would draw special people into fellowship with himself. Enoch is described as a man who walked with God. Noah, likewise, walked in communion with the Lord. And Abraham, the father of Israel, is called “the friend of God.”

No OT saint had deeper fellowship with God than did Moses during his 40 day encounter with the Lord on Mt. Sinai. Later in Israel’s history David wrote psalms that reflects a heart vitally in tune with the Living God.

As a result God’s finishing work on the cross, makes his permanent home in the believers heart (Jn. 14:23). The fellowship that we now have resides under the new covenant written on mans heart. The gospel restores the fellowship not only with God, but also among believers as well. The last supper Jesus had with his disciples shows the vertical and horizontal dimensions of fellowship. The heart of the Lord and His followers are now bound together by a deep sense of love and commitment to God and each other.

*Fellowship is our deep longing

How amazing is it that we can have fellowship with Jesus Christ even though we walk on the earth at a different time in history. (1 John 1:3). Every Sunday when we take communion or the Lord’s Supper do you consider that you are thinking about having fellowship with Jesus from over 2,000 years ago.

Romans 8 speaks of an inward growing for as in the pains of childbirth for the adoption process to be completed when Christ returns and we are resurrected into our new bodies. So, the fellowship we have now with Christ is only a foretaste of what is to Come.

Every time we fellowship with the body, and are enthralled by a worship experience we should keep in mind that this is only a foretaste of what heaven is going to be like.

We want to invite others into our Fellowship

This is not your private club of people that we want to keep close and not change. We should not be able to contain the message of what Christ has done for us.

It should be an obvious passion and compelling message that we want to share with the world. We will testify, and bear witness concerning Jesus Christ, and we will proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.

To what end: SO THAT OTHERS MIGHT HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH US John loves the Church so much that he wants everyone to be a part of the Church, He doesn’t want anyone to be on the outside looking in, missing the great joy of being a part of the family of God.

The Greek word for this kind of fellowship is Koinonia: Speaking of sharing something in common something that is significant and important.

It entails the joy and oneness in a group of people who are in accord regarding something that really matters. You share common values, beliefs, and goals. You love the same things. You pursue common values, beliefs, and goals. You love the same things. You pursue a common agenda with your life.

Many people have a completely unbiblical view of the Church. The fellowship that exists among followers of Christ is:

far richer and deeper than any fraternity or sorority you may have been a part of.

far richer and deeper than any sports team community.

far richer and deeper than our national identity or ethnic heritage.

It is the fellowship of the family of God that transcends any and all artificial communities and barriers that have afflicted the human race since the fall. We are now a fellowship in every sense of the word. When Jesus becomes our Savior, God becomes our Father. it is a package deal. Later in 2:23, John writes, “No one who denies the Son can have the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.

You cannot say you like the Son but do not like His church. That would be like me saying, “man I like you but I can’t stand your wife.”

In addition you now get a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. You get our one big dysfunctional family. This means that you have more in common with a Chinese Christian, and African sister, and a brother in South America than a next-door neighbor who does not know Christ.

* We want to invite everyone into our Fellowship

At the Journey we should continually be talking about these 3 things.

1)Our commitment to God - in our Worship.

Our worship on Sunday’s is what fuels us for our mission. We come together and testify to what we have seen, heard, and actively experienced from God during the week. It should be a time of celebration, equipping, admonition, and encouragement.

2)Our commitment to each other - in our fellowship.

Our fellowship as brothers and sisters in Christ takes place in community. Acts 2 the Church was meeting in homes, they were breaking bread together, they were sharing in sweet fellowship together reminding each other of the greater mission that they are called to be a part of as Children of God.

3)Our commitment to the world - in our witness.

Our commitment to the world happens when we scatter throughout our daily lives into a lost world that desperately need to hear the reason for the great hope we have in Christ Jesus. 1 Peter 3:15 reminds us to always be ready to give an apology for the great hope we have in Christ Jesus.

Harvard Professor Worries 'Is Life Cosmically Irrelevant?'

Harvard professor James Wood, in a New Yorker article "Is That All There Is?" tells of a friend, a philosopher and a convinced atheist, who sometimes wakes in the middle of the night haunted by the following angst: "How can it be that this world is the result of an accidental big bang? How could there be no design, no metaphysical purpose? Can it be that every life—beginning with my own, my husband's, my child's, and spreading outward—is cosmically irrelevant?"

Wood, who is a secular man himself, admits that "as one gets older, and parents and peers begin to die, and the obituaries in the newspaper are no longer missives from a faraway place but local letters, and one's own projects seem ever more pointless and ephemeral, such moments of terror and incomprehension seem more frequent and more piercing, and, I find, as likely to arise in the middle of the day as the night."

What is this "incomprehension" that can suddenly grip even secular persons? Wood's friend's questions reveal more an intuition than a line of reasoning. It is the sense that we are more and life is more than what we can see in the material world. Steve Jobs, when contemplating his own death, confessed that he felt that "it's strange to think that you accumulate all this experience ... and it just goes away. So I really want to believe that something survives, that maybe your consciousness endures."

It seemed to Jobs untrue to reality that, for something as significant as the human self, death would be just an "off switch," so it is merely "Click! And you're gone."

Notice how John clearly supports the relationship between the first two in order to compel them to a commitment to the third.

SHARED DOCTRINE IS THE BASIS OF OUR CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

What is Doctrine: it is a shared set of beliefs that are taught by a Church, political party or other group. What we believe about God and His Son matters..............

Doctrine is the worldview or the lens through which we see the world and how it governs our lives.

Paul tells us in Galatians 1:7-9 that if anyone is presenting or preaching to you a different gospel than the one lined out in scripture let him be cursed!!!

There is no significant fellowship among people who do not share the same view of Jesu Christ. Shared doctrine is the basis of Christian fellowship. Remember in Acts 2 “The early Church shared or had all things in common.” The all things is the shared belief in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, and resurrection to bring us life.

When John wants to cultivate Christian fellowship he writes them a letter full of Christian theology. The deeper and stronger you want your fellowship to be, the more theology must be shared.

The gospel message creates a community, not just among humans who share its benefits, but also between humans and the source of the message itself. John is speaking of fellowship of the community in terms of a family. When you become a follower of Christ you get us all.

3. Do you have a Passion for Enjoying this life

1 John ends it’s introduction with the purpose for the writing of this letter “that our joy may be complete.”

John wrote this letter so that our joy would be complete, not partial but complete.

Enjoying God is to know God intellectually, to admire God in all his beauty, to delight in him emotionally, and to dedicate ourselves to him; in essence, to enjoy God is to praise God for the God that he is.

There is in the soul of every human being an insatiable desire to experience joy. God has hardwired our very DNA for a yearning, a longing, and an unrelenting passion for pleasure. We feel that impulse every moment of our day. It is part of what it means to be created in the image of God.

Psalm 37:4 ESV

4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

The desires of our heart must be desires that have God at the center focus that is only found in Him.

*God is most glorified in us when we find our greatest joy in Him.

Note: It is impossible to experience true joy apart from the joy of knowing Christ. Notice that delighting ourselves or finding our joy in the Lord is not a request but a command. Delighting or finding or joy in Him is also a feeling, an emotion, an affection, a subjective experience that is ultimately not under our control. It isn’t something that we can produce or manufacture by an act of the will. God has to awaken and stir and evoke such affections in our soul.

Take Worship for Example: When you are engaged in worship if it is something you can take or leave, or have little connection with then how can you claim to have experienced the true joy that comes from knowing Christ.

WHY JOY?

Why do the biblical authors make such a big deal about finding delight and joy in God as central to our relationship with him? Is it not enough to simply obey God or fear God believe in God?

1) Joy reveals the worth of our worship.

Joy matters more than any other because the human response or experience of joy clearly reveals the worth, value, and splendor we place on what we are worshiping. (if you find greater joy in other things what does that say about your heart).

John Piper - “Joy is the clearest witness to the worth of what we enjoy. It’s the deepest reverbiration in the heart of man of the value of God’s glory.”

HOW IS GOD MOST GLORIFIED IN US?

God is most glorified in us when our knowledge and experience of him ignite a forest fire of joy that consumes all competing pleasures in our lives and he alone becomes the treasure we prize above all else. God created us to glorify himself by enriching us with the joy that flows from a saving encounter with the splendor of God.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A JOYLESS CHRISTIAN.

2) Joy ignites the power of our Holiness.

Joy matters because apart from the breathtaking beauty of Christ and resting in the all-sufficiency of his grace and goodness, we do not stand a chance against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

This is the battle that we face each day. We awaken to the world at war for the allegiance of our minds and the affections of our souls. The winner will be whoever can persuade us that he will bring greatest and most soul-satisfying joy. That is why we must labor and pray and strive so passionately and sacrificially for joy in Christ.

John speaks in 1 John 2:1 about how part of our joy is found in the pursuit of holiness so that when we do sin we have an advocate in Christ that works to produce in us a sin-killing life that doesn’t come primarily from trying harder but from enjoying Him more. Pleasure in God is the power for our purity.

3) Joy engages the totality of our being.

Unlike so many other affections of the soul, joy is the only one that can completely fill the totality of our life. You can understand something without rejoicing in it. You can make a decision in life or exercise your will in regard to some matter that you profoundly dislike.

However, when you truly rejoice in something you must both understand it and choose it. Joy requires the engagement of every fiber of your being mine, spirit, and heart. Joy expresses the whole of you in a way that nothing else can. So, to truly enjoy something and find great joy in that thing you must make a conscious choice to choose it. You must grasp it with your mind and embrace it with your heart.

Hannah’s Joy

Before, my mom developed cancer she used to paint. This is one of her paintings titled, “Hannah’s Joy,” after our daughter Hannah. The reason she called it that is because when Hannah was a child joy just emitted from every fiber of her being. She was a beam of sunlight over even the darkest of days. There was something so pure, and innocent about Hannah’s joy that it was just infectious to everyone around her. I see the same kind of joy in our granddaughter Evelyn.

Joy gives the greatest expression to who you are as a Christian. I have seen the hardest hearts, and most hardened people that once they truly submit their lives to Christ they cannot help but smile all the time.

REMEMBER THAT THERE IS NOT SUCH THING AS A JOYLESS CHRISTIAN

Joy is one of the markers of a true follower of Christ because there is not such thing as hypocritical or insincere joy. You can pretend to have joy when you really don’t. You can fake having joy, but you cannot have fake joy. There is something pure and sincere and genuine about joy that isn’t the case with any other human affection.

Note: You cannot have meaningful joy in a person that you do not know.

1 Peter 1:8 ESV

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,

1 John tells us in 1 John 5:12-13 That those how have the son of God have the life that John is talking about and those who do not have the Son of God do not have life. He is writing so that we may believe and know the same kind of joy that is only found in Jesus Christ alone.

CONCLUSION

The deep joy we have as followers of Christ

The deep joy that empowers the human heart to overcome all obstacles in our life.

The deep joy that satisfies the deepest longing of my soul.

Notice that Paul say’s at the end of his letter to the Philippians “that he rejoices in the Lord greatly, not that he is in need of anything, he has learned to be content with the joy he has in knowing Christ Jesus in all circumstances, he has known how to be brought low, he has known how to abound, in any and every circumstance he has learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. He claims to be able to do all things because of Christ who gives him the strength.

If you go back to the beginning of Philippians 4 Paul refers to his brothers whom he loves as his joy and his crown.

How do we know when we are living this Deep Joy?

You know that you are living this deep joy when:

*The greatest joy of your heart is experiencing Christ and personally sharing that experience with others.

*Our desire should not only be to grow deeper in Christ, it should also be to grow closer to those who know Christ, and to reach wider so that others can come to know him.

WRITE THIS DOWN:

How am I daily experiencing the word of life?

How has this life motivated me to draw closer to my spiritual family?

The enemy will continually use every weapon at his disposal to steal our joy of hearing, seeing, and knowing Christ to the fullest. If you are not currently experience the fullest joy of knowing Christ perhaps its because you do not truly have a relationship with the giver of joy.