Walking In the Ways of Jesus

When Jesus’s close friend John wrote to the earlier church, he was very aware of how there was a movement afoot that talked about how all you really needed in your spiritual life was to be able to check off the right boxes of belief. In the first century this was called gnosticism, which was a growing approach to life inspired by Greek philosophers who emphasized the only thing that mattered was between your ears.

So John pushes back.

Over and over again he emphasized how important an embodied faith is. Over and over again he focused on how Jesus lived in the world as the model for how we live in this world - fully embodied, actually doing things, walking in the way of Jesus.

Today, read these verses and let them sit with you. What is striking you? How is the Spirit moving in you as you read these and process what it means to walk in the ways of Jesus?

This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. - 1 John 4:2

If anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. - 1 John 2:5-7

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. - 1 John 4:16-17