Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 453
1 JOHN
We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we
have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him
with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was
revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to
you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then
he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually
seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these
things so that you may fully share our joy.
This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is
light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we
have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not
practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light,
then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son,
cleanses us from all sin.
If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living
in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we
have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has
no place in our hearts.
My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But
if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the
Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He himself is
the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins
of all the world.
And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If
someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments,
that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s
word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we
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