When His Life is Your Life
July 01, 2025
Dr. J. Vernon McGee
In our study of this wonderful letter from John to the body of Christ, we learn three great definitions of God: “God is light” (1 John 1), “God is love” (1 John 2-3), and “God is life” (1 John 5).
God is life, and our life in Him comes through being born of God. You become a child of God through simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In his Gospel, John wrote that if you believe on Him, Jesus gives you the power (that is, the right, the authority) to become the sons of God, even to those who don’t do any more nor less than simply believe on His name (see John 1:12). When you trust Christ, you trust who He is as well as what He did. What He did has no value if He is not who He said He was.
Jesus’ virgin birth is essential. Who is this that died for the sins of the world? Jesus was not an ordinary man—he would then be sinful and couldn’t even save Himself. But to believe that Jesus is the Christ, Son of God, produces the new birth.
When you have been born again, how do you know? Does it come with some great, overwhelming experience? Well, some experience that, but it’s not typical.
When you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you are born again, and God becomes your heavenly Father. You are His and you will love Him. But it doesn’t stop there—you also will love God’s other children. Jesus said this love is the distinguishing mark of anyone who follows Him (John 13:35).
You are born again when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and the proof of it is that you love God and you love His other children because they are your brothers and sisters. This cannot be confined to a certain denomination, church, race, clique, or group. The one who is born again will love others who are born again.
How can you be sure you are saved? John offers some evidences that you are a child of God.
- You want to do what’s right (1 John 2:29). You will fail sometimes, but your habit is to do right in order to please God.
- You don’t make sin a lifestyle (John 3:9). You don’t live in it or revel in it. Your practice is to not do wrong. We couldn’t help it before we had God’s Spirit to give us power, but now we live differently than our natural bent.
- You love other Christians (1 John 4:7). Do you have concern for them? This test will give you confidence you are born of God.
- You overcome the world (1 John 5:4). The “world” here is the cosmos, that is, the world with all of its organizations, all of its governments, all of its selfishness, its greed, its sorrow, its sickness, and its awful sin. Who can conquer the world except the man who really believes Jesus is God’s Son?
- You choose to live close to God so He can protect you from Satan (1 John 5:18). You don’t intentionally sin and put yourself in a place where the evil one can reach you. The devil can’t lay a hand on us when we are held firmly by God; it’s only the people of the world who continue in the grip of the evil one.
Loving God and His children, obedience to what Jesus taught us, and living in truth are birthmarks of God’s child (1 John 5:2).
The Spirit Makes These Truths Live
The Lord Jesus told the disciples that between His death and resurrection and the day of Pentecost, they were to wait in Jerusalem and do nothing. They were not to witness of Him—why? Because they couldn’t witness effectually without the Holy Spirit.
If anyone can be saved, not only is Jesus Christ’s redemptive death essential, but also the Spirit of God must be at work in our hearts and lives. Christ died for our sins, but the Spirit of God makes that real to us. He’s the only one who can.
Our salvation is the work of both heaven and earth. The Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit—as three-in-One—bear witness in heaven. And on earth, the Spirit and the water and the blood agree in one purpose: Presenting Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world who shed His blood upon Calvary and paid the penalty for our sins.
You are reading this—written sometime in the past by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Now, the Holy Spirit is applying His Word to your heart. His witness is that you would come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and then grow in His grace and knowledge of the truth.
How do you come to this knowledge? Through the Word of God. The Word of God is the only thing that can clean up your life even as a believer, and it is the only thing that will keep you clean.
The only true miracle cleansing agent in the world today is the Word of God. For the Word of God presents Christ who shed His blood for your sins and my sins. These three bear witness on earth—the Spirit uses the water of the Word and applies the blood for our salvation. These three all agree in one—that is, they want to get you saved and keep you saved.
My Turn
- What do the three definitions of God—God is light, God is love, and God is life—tell us about Him?
- If God is life for those who believe in Him, what does that tell us about those who have not believed?
- Being born again into God’s family should change our affections; we should love God and His people. Examine what you love. Does it reflect being a member of God’s family?
- Our relationship to sin is an indicator of our relationship with God. Are there sin patterns in your life that the Holy Spirit has been working in your life to change? What needs to happen for you to overcome these sins?
- The most important thing we can do as Christians is to continue in the faith. What challenges your faith and what encourages it?