1 John 5

Be still: Pause... and enjoy the moment. Reflect for a few moments on the everlasting love of God for you.

Read: 1 John 5

‘...and this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son does not have life.’ (vv11-12)

Encounter: I watch too many TV detective programmes. They all seem to follow a standard pattern: the leading detective is a maverick, someone suspicious of authority and ready to bend a few rules. At some point in the story the detective will say something like ‘I have a hunch that this person is guilty’ and the others say ‘Maybe, but we need evidence!’

Evidence in court hinges on witnesses. The most powerful testimonies in any court come from eyewitnesses – who actually saw things with their own eyes and can reveal the whole truth.

As we read this final chapter of John’s letter to us, we remind ourselves that here we are faced with that essential eyewitness account. John, the ‘beloved disciple’, who helped pull in a miraculous catch of fish, who accompanied Jesus as he raised the daughter of Jairus from the dead; who stood with Peter and James on the mountain as Jesus was transfigured and they heard the voice of the Father. John, who stood by the Cross and took Jesus’s mother Mary into his own home. John, who at the beginning of this very letter, says ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. John the eyewitness.

Apply: We come to the end of John’s short letter, and he has some serious final words to share with us and some serious things he wants to remind us of. He’s spoken of love as the oxygen of the Kingdom; he has warned us about false teachings; now he returns to his testimony – the difference between life and death. Just a few words – God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son – but those are the central words of our faith. They have given hope for two thousand years. Rest your hope on them afresh today.

Devote: Lord, please help me to trust in, and live by, those words through this day and all the days to come.