Testing the spirits
Let all who seek you
Rejoice and be glad in you. Psalm 70:4
Read 1 John 4:1—6
Unless I am a recluse — and the faith was never set up for that — I cannot help realising that there are armies of people ready to challenge my report on the Christian faith. I am a heretic in someone’s eyes. And I can’t go public with my faith without courting controversy and dispute. The solution offered in the case of the church of 1 John is a great start: Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. He is the Word made flesh.[1] In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.[2] I must remain firmly fixed on this centre. But there remain libraries of heresies that have been poured upon the church since I John was written. How can I know, little old me? How can I speak? Well, I want to. I want to speak in love, because the truth of God is also the truth about every person I will ever speak with. I do not want to be cowed into silence. I will pray for discernment.
Lord Jesus Christ, you declared yourself to be the truth, and promised that the truth would set me free.[3] Were it not for your Spirit within me I should not know you as Christ. Were it not for you I should not know the truth, and I should not know truly. So I pray for your Spirit to be in my conversation, leading me, and I pray for Christ to be known as the presence of God and the revealer of all the things we need in the knowledge of God. Save me from mere controversy. Let me speak of you in love for those I speak to, and confirm in me a belief that you can speak to them as you have spoken to me. Reveal yourself even as we talk of these things. Whatever the subject, may my conversation only seek to honour you.
[1] John 1:14
[2] Colossians 1:19
[3] John 8:31—32