The Power of Love Letters

       The apostle John often referred to himself as the beloved disciple. He must have had a deep revelation of the power of Christ’s sacrificial love. In 1 John 4:17 he wrote: “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the Day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.” Notice this is our position in Christ now while we are still on earth. In God’s sight, every believer is a new creation, not an old sinner (Rom. 3:20-26). We still sin, but those sins are forgiven and forgotten (Is. 43:25; Heb. 10:14-18).
          This is why we are to walk in the reality of who we are in Christ in our reborn spirit—what the Bible calls walking by the spirit and not by the flesh. The point of the love letters in Rev. 3 & 4 is to remind us that we are to overcome through the power of Christ’s finished work on the cross. We are to be overcomers, even now in our daily lives.
          Born in the flesh, Jesus operated on this earth in an earthly body, subject to all the temptations of this world. He had to resist sin just as we do. How? By speaking and walking according to God’s Word, as He did when Satan tempted Him immediately after His anointing at His baptism. He not only overcame the power of sin, He overcame the power of death.
          Every person has the sin nature by virtue of being born from Adam. By grace every believer is saved and their sins are forgiven (Rom. 5:12-19). We simply believe and receive. It is not about our works or lack thereof that determine our position in Christ; it is His finished work on our behalf!
          As we believe, we are to speak (Rom. 4:18; 2 Cor. 4:13). In the natural, we may see this as lying because we know we are not totally walking according to His Word. But that is looking only at the natural. We are no longer just natural beings, we are supernatural beings because the Holy Spirit abides in every believer. This is how faith works: if it is in His Word, then that is what we already have in Christ even though we are not living it fully yet (2 Cor. 3:17-18) .
          END-TIME LESSON: The bottom line is that as the Church we have not yet perfected our walk according to God’s Kingdom ways.  We all deal with issues that result from living in a fallen world that chooses to know evil. We all have residual darkened areas (habits of the flesh) that need to be transformed by the power of God’s Word (Rom. 12:1-2). This is why the focus of the letters here is the promises to the overcomers—those who, like Jesus, shall be resurrected at the appointed Day, the dawn of the 7th great Day, the Day of the Lord. At the appointed time, we shall be fully perfected in Christ!