Cultivate The Flowers - The One Year Unlocking the Bible Devotional
Cultivate the Flowers
God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 1 John 1:5
If we are to have fellowship with God, we must walk in the light. This means pursuing obedience, growing in love, and holding to the truth. These three flowers grow in the life of every person in fellowship with God. You may not see them everywhere, but they will be planted and growing.
The first sign of an authentic relationship with God is that we obey his commands (see 1 John 2:3). John brings further clarification when he puts it in the negative: “If someone claims, ‘I know God,’ but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth” (2:4).
If obedience grows, it is a sure sign of the work of the Gardener, because this is what he cultivates in the lives of those he owns. But if obedience is not growing, there is little reason to think that the garden belongs to God.
Loving others is the second evidence of walking in fellowship with God: “Anyone who loves another brother or sister is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble” (1 John 2:10). Again, John puts it in the negative: “If anyone claims, ‘I am living in the light,’ but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is still living in darkness” (2:9).
Some people claim to have fellowship with God, but without love, their claim is empty. There may be a neon sign flashing, “This garden belongs to God,” but if you don’t see love growing there, you can be pretty sure God isn’t the gardener.
The clearest test of fellowship with God is a person’s response to Jesus Christ: “All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God” (1 John 4:15). The one sure evidence of God’s work in a life will be that person’s clear confession that Jesus is the Son of God. But the person who denies this truth does not have fellowship with God (see 2:22-23).
Where God is at work in a person’s life, the flowers of obedience, love, and truth will all be clearly seen. They’re the seeds God plants in every garden he owns.
For further reading, see 1 John 2
