1 John 5:3-5

Kerry really had some great words for these verses. I agree with her that it seems (to our sinful nature!) that God's laws are MORE than burdensome; but thankfully it is not the case. Truly, God enables us by faith to have the desire and strength to follow his commands and to find them somehow easy and light and we are joyful to follow them! It's not always this way, when we let the world or our sinful nature guide us, but when we come back in repentance to our Lord and ask for him to realign our heart and our purposes with him, we overflow with power from the Holy Spirit. It is really amazing. I so want to stay and live in the light so as to keep this power from Christ to follow him!! :)
We overcome through faith (vs. 4-5). Initially we did, when we were baptized and believed, and we do always daily overcome through the war we wage in Christian living, by the grace of God! My NIV footnotes did a great job of explaining these verses. What a great pick-me-up, encouraging, empowering section of Scripture in these few verses! John drills into us over and over what we ought to do as Christians, namely love God and others, and we can get to a point where we wonder if we can do it, WHY we should do it when it's rarely easy and there's so much sin in the world. Here he gives us the how and why. He reminds us we already have what we need to serve the Lord with our lives. Christ did not just save us and then leave us to our own efforts. How thankful I am for that!! God knew we would daily and always NEED him by our side to empower and encourage our walk, to give it purpose.
We're getting to the end of our study session, many of you are nearing the end of a semester (excited for you!!) and all of us have probably struggled with sickness of some sort, schedule overload at work or home, and worldly stress from the holidays. Today the Lord encourages us, and refreshes us with helping us to realign our priorities, and rest on him if we are weary or discouraged. "I can do ALL things through him who gives me strength!" (Phil. 4:13)

Love you girls,
~Cait