June 14 - 1 John 2:28-29. Confident

June 14 - 1 John 2:28-29. Confident

And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 


If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

I know that many people have loved the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye, but I’ll be honest with you, though the story is intriguing and mysterious, it has done a terrible disservice to Christianity.

Rather than looking forward with great expectation to the return of Christ, too many people are frightened by it. Rather than having confidence, people are fearful of their own failure in the face of His coming back.

The Gospels were not written to tell people how awful they are, but were written to share the Good News of Jesus Christ so that everyone might come to know Him and enter into a close relationship with God.

When I was in high school, there was a series of movies based on the Revelation that scared the bejeebus out of me.  I remember seeing a Christian girl (in one of the movies) getting her head lopped off by a guillotine because she wouldn’t take the mark of the beast. In the end, what happened to those who weren’t Christians wasn’t any better.  To be honest, the entire thing was horrific and not very edifying.  But, it was believed that scaring people into being Christians was better than them not being Christian.

The only problem was, when the end of the world wasn’t right around the corner, fear tactics Christianity failed.  People recognized that they weren’t going to die and went on with their lives, not worrying too much about Christ’s return and not thinking too much about their relationship with God.

While negative reinforcement can establish habits in our lives, it doesn’t change our hearts. John wants us to stand before Jesus at his return confident and unashamed.  We can’t be that if deep down in our hearts we resent the way we came to know him.  We can only face Him with confidence if we are in full agreement with Him that life is better and filled with joy and hope because we know Him.