The Little Letters - Day 9

1 John 3:7-10–7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. 8 But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. 10 So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.

The author has concern for his congregation that they might be led astray. This phrase serves as a hinge between the previous section and this longer unit. He warns the readers not to led from the path of following God. And he makes the point that if they do what is righteous, it helps with their righteousness.
 
Does this seem obvious to you? We know that righteousness comes from Christ, but we also know that the way we express righteousness is by actions that prove this righteousness in our lives. So to say that we should not be led astray to stop acts of righteousness means that something was going on in those communities that put this in jeopardy. What was it that was happening?
 
We see that the author, in verse 8, uses some strong language in speaking about those who continue to sin. Both the letters and the gospel of John frequently speak of being “of” something, a phrase speaks to a connection, allegiance, or orientation toward something or someone. In this case, it is “of the devil.” The inference is that if you are “of the devil,” you cannot be “of God.”
 
But there is one thing that it does not say. It does not say “born of the devil.” So that ownership is not the devil’s at all. It is a choice and can be reversed by simply heading in another direction.
He continues on to tell us that if you are “of God” you cannot continue to sin. This has a tendency to trip us up, which is probably one reason that Martin Luther didn’t like this book much at all.
 
So here is what is hard, we know that we continue to sin, and that is pretty common knowledge for anyone who has been in the faith. But we also know there is always the desirenot to sin and have victory over sin. We hear that term a great deal. What was happening in the author’s churches at the time was that there were people who were preaching that it was impossible to sin anymore once you were in Christ, and that went against the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of the early church. Therefore, the author was trying to remind them that we should not “sin more so that grace may increase,” as it is said in the book of Romans.
 

1. What is your relationship with sin like? 
2. Are you often frustrated with it? 
3. Do you feel like you cannot get away from it? 
4. How can you work toward living that righteous life that the author is speaking of?