In Fellowship with Us

The epistle of 1 John may have more words of encouragement for the number of verses than any other in Scripture. The very purpose for John writing it is so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). Several times in this letter, John refers to his readers as “my children.” He cared a great deal about them. He wanted to encourage them.

I don’t suppose there is any more encouraging thing than to know that you have hope of eternal life. John goes to great lengths to tell his readers that they can have that hope. They could know they had eternal life.

I do not know all of you personally. However, I still am able to say every week that I love you even though I don’t know you because I know that God loves you. I want for you the same encouragement that John wanted for his readers (and that includes you and me). I want us both to have fellowship with John and with Christians of the first century and with God Himself. And you and I can have assurance that we know God; that we have eternal life.

1 John 2:3: By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. That’s simple, isn’t it? All we have to do is keep God’s commandments and we know we have come to know Him. Several times John makes the connection between our loving one another and our being acceptable to God. 1 John 4:8: The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 3:18, 19: Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him. In 1 John 5:13 he makes the most important statement on this point: These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. He wanted his readers to know that they had eternal life; or to know that they could have eternal life.

I want to encourage each one of you by assuring you that you can know you have eternal life. All you have to do is keep the commandments of God. John said something else about those commandments, by the way. 1 John 5:3: For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. His commandments are not too hard to keep. So, what are we waiting for? John wanted you and me to be in fellowship with him and his brethren and with God Himself. I want to be in that fellowship, don’t you? Please know that God loves you and so do I.