“ABIDE”

“Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father.”

1 John 2:24

If you have been a believer for quite some time, you should probably know by now that the Christian life isn’t a sprint but a marathon. It’s not about speed but endurance. It doesn’t really matter how fast you get there. What matters is that you stay and finish the race.

In this part of John’s first epistle, he encourages his readers to “abide” (Greek “meno”) in the message they have heard from the beginning. He entreats them to continue believing the message about Christ, which made them Christians, to begin with.

I want to zero in on the word “heard.” The original Greek term for “hear” (akouo) does not mean merely hearing sounds. Instead, it connotes “to understand,” and “perceive the sense of what is being said.” Therefore, we are expected to not only listen attentively to the Gospel but also understand and believe it if we find it true. We are to be persuaded by the truth that Jesus is God in the flesh who died on the Cross and rose back to life. This is the central message of the Christian faith, which every believer should know by heart and believe with all his mind and soul.

John continues, saying that if his listeners kept on believing the message about Christ, they would continue having a healthy fellowship with the Father and the Son. They would only abide in God so long as they resisted the false teachings of the antichrists.

Your fellowship with God is a valuable part of your Christian life, but it is only established if you believed the Christian message and kept it if you held on to it. Getting yourself re-acquainted with the Gospel is a good practice. Let it sink in. This way, you can easily detect false teaching when you encounter one.

Consider John’s warning:

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

1 John 4:1

Like John, I encourage you to listen to, understand, believe in, and hold on to the Gospel. Use it as the standard to measure every other ‘gospel’ catechized by false teachers.

Pursue the Savior today!