1 John 2

Letters of John

We are formed by everything that God has given and are called to walk fully in that grace

But sometimes we forget what grace looks like and how to walk.

I’m sure you have heard the phrase, “practice makes perfect.” While that is not entirely true. It’s not that practice makes perfect, it’s that but practice makes permanent

› But we don’t always ask the question, are you being formed in the way you want to be?

› Are you being formed in the way that God is calling you to be?

What we do most we become the best at

Our understanding of the good, that means, isn’t always good.

Maybe what you find is good has hurt a lot of people.

Maybe your definition of what is good can’t hold up much more.

The stuff we do over and over (our orientiation to the world) that forms us Augustine says that the law of sin is the violence of habit.

1 John 2:15–17 ESV

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

He is not saying don’t love other things. He is saying your love either forms or malforms things. What we desire can make something better or it can make things much much worse.

he is not saying don’t love other things. He is saying don’t love other things because of what you can get out of them. It’s not love for them it’s love for desire of the flesh, you. Or desire of the eyes, you. Or the pride of life, you.

Your practice with your desires is making permanent. And you are being formed to points that may not be healthy. The orientation you move toward may start well, but desire easily malforms and you end up further down the road than you wanted.

1 John 2:3–6 ESV

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

And if we have trusted Christ to save us we have everything that He has given

1 John 2:1–2 ESV

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Christ is the one who is the “propitiation” for our sins. Meaning that all that was wrong, all that was made wrathful, all that was broken, is appeased.

1 John 2:5 ESV

but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him:

We have to orient Christ in such a way that we are formed by Him. And Christ is how we know God. We are formed to God because of Christ and live our our lives by doing the stuff that He did.

we are being formed by all sorts of things in the world. Minute by minute. Are you being formed in a way that is what you are hoping for? Are you being formed in a way that God is calling you to?