Living in Light, Love, and Truth: Living with Eternal Life

1 John 5:13–21

If you pull out a dollar bill, you’ll see four familiar words printed on the back: “In God We Trust.” It’s our national motto. We print it on our money. We claim it as part of our identity.

But according to the latest General Social Survey, those four words no longer describe the way most Americans actually live. When people were asked how confident they were that God really exists, only 50%—just half—said they believe in God without any doubts. Thirty years ago that number was 65%, and it’s been sliding ever since. Among young adults the shift is even more dramatic: only 36% now say they are certain God exists.

So we live in a country where our currency declares trust in God, but our culture increasingly doesn’t know whether God is even there. Doubt is growing. Fear is growing. Confusion is growing.

Which raises a deeper question: Where does real confidence come from?

According to the apostle John, confidence doesn’t come from slogans or cultural heritage. It certainly doesn’t come from our feelings. Confidence comes from a Person—Jesus—and what He has already done for us. In his final words of 1 John, John reminds the church what they can know with certainty. And these same truths anchor us today.

We Can Be Confident That We Have Eternal Life

(1 John 5:13–15)

John tells us exactly why he wrote this letter: “so that you may know that you have eternal life.” We don’t have to guess. We don’t have to wonder. We don’t have to live in spiritual uncertainty.

How can we know? John points to two essential realities:

1. Our faith in King Jesus, the unique Son of God.
2. Our love for God and for one another.

Faith and love aren’t abstract ideas—they’re evidence of new life. And because we belong to God, we also have confidence in prayer. When our allegiance is aligned with Jesus, our desires begin to reflect God’s desires. We pray according to His will, and John assures us: God hears us. As a Father, He gives what we need, even if it looks different than what we asked for.

Eternal life isn’t a future prize; it’s a present reality. And it brings confidence.

We Can Be Confident That Sin Is Evil—and That God Rescues Us From It

(1 John 5:16–19)

John turns next to one of the more challenging passages in his letter—praying for those caught in sin.

There are sins that lead to repentance, where guilt and sorrow eventually draw someone back to God. These we should pray for boldly. But John also acknowledges a deeper, more hardened rebellion—willful rejection of God, the kind embraced by the false teachers troubling the early church. Their hearts were closed to the Spirit. Prayer for them may not change their course.

Why is this important? Because confidence in God awakens seriousness about sin. Followers of Jesus don’t make sin a lifestyle. We confess our sins. We seek forgiveness. We fight against temptation because God’s love has taken hold of us.

John contrasts two spiritual realities:

1. We are God’s children, shaped by His love, Spirit, and Word.
2. The world lies under the influence of the evil one, shaped by the spirit of anti-Christ.

So we remain alert. Confident—but not careless.

We Can Be Confident About Jesus—The True God and Eternal Life

(1 John 5:20–21)

John closes with clarity: Jesus has given us the fullest revelation of God. The Old Testament gave glimpses of God through the law, but Jesus shows us God’s heart through love. And because of Him, we can have a genuine relationship with God—walking in love, faith, and loyalty to King Jesus.

This fuller knowledge of God leads to one final command:

“Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Idols aren’t just statues. They’re false ideas of God. Distorted pictures of Jesus. Voices that seduce our loyalty away from the King—just as the temples and false teachers tried to sway the early church.

Confidence in Jesus means refusing all competing allegiances.

Living With Eternal Life Today

John ends his letter like a loving spiritual father—reminding us what is true, what can be trusted, and how we should live. Our world may be confused about God, but we don’t need to be.

Following King Jesus gives us the confidence we need to live faithfully in this world.

And this kind of life—rooted in clarity, loyalty, and trust—is exactly what our world needs to see.

A Simple Challenge for This Week

Choose one concrete step of confidence:

• Pray boldly for someone who is struggling. 
• Confess a sin you’ve been tolerating.
• Silence a voice that is pulling you from the truth. 
• Open your Bible each morning and ask God to deepen your trust.

Live like someone who truly has eternal life—not someday, but now.

Final Thought

If you are in Christ, you are not meant to drift through life uncertain, anxious, or spiritually unstable. You are meant to stand firm, pray boldly, resist sin faithfully, love sincerely, and worship wholeheartedly. Reject every idol that competes for your allegiance.

Remain with Jesus. Trust Him. Follow Him.

And you will shine with a confidence this world has forgotten—but desperately needs to see.

Paul’s Ponderings is a blog dedicated to reflecting on Scripture and encouraging believers to live out their faith with love and purpose.

Living in Light, Love, and Truth: Faith in King Jesus

Text: 1 John 5:1–12

We live in a world full of noise—voices telling us what to value, whom to fear, and how to live. And in the middle of all that cultural confusion, John reminds us of something essential: the confidence we need to love each other and to overcome the world comes from knowing Jesus is King.

A Voice You Can Trust

In March of 2022, CBS News told the story of Jacob Smith, a 15-year-old freeride skier who is legally blind. Jacob has extreme tunnel vision, no depth perception, and everything he does see is a blur. His visual acuity is 20/800—meaning he would need the big “E” from the eye chart blown up four times its size to see it from twenty feet away.

So how does a teenager who can barely see ski down steep, dangerous mountain faces?

He listens to a voice he trusts.

On competition days, Jacob’s little brother guides him to peaks so high the lifts won’t take you there. His father waits at the bottom, takes a deep breath, and begins talking Jacob down the mountain. Jacob keeps a radio turned up loud in his pocket, and as he starts downhill he does exactly what his father says. “Turn right. Slow down. Big drop coming. Stay left.”

When asked how much he trusts his dad, Jacob smiled and said, “Enough to turn right when he tells me to.”

Confidence comes from knowing the authority you’re responding to. When you trust the one giving the command, obedience isn’t burdensome—it becomes natural. Fear loses its power.

That’s the tone John sets in 1 John 5. His churches have been overwhelmed by competing voices, false teachings, and spiritual confusion. So he brings them back to the one truth that changes everything:

You know who your King is.

Jesus is not one more voice among many. He is the true King of the cosmos—our source of life, confidence, and victory.

A Church Formed by Love

The  Church John envisioned is: a people who remain in the truth and walk in love. Discipleship isn’t complicated. We receive God’s love, which empowers us to love God and love people, and then others experience God’s love through us. That’s how disciples are made. That’s how we bear witness to the reign of King Jesus.

The apostle John wrote his first letter to faith communities under his care that had been under attack and divided by false teaching. This teaching downplayed Jesus and sin while focusing on spiritual power and enlightenment. John wanted to remind them of Jesus’s true identity as the unique Divine Son of God, the King of the World, and that our job is to love God and to love people.

John has just finished teaching about love—that the true definition of love is not what the false teachers say it is, but God, specifically seen in the sacrifice of Jesus. God’s type of love is sacrificial. It is giving what we have so the other person can be blessed. Along with love we need faith. What does this faith look like?

The Faith We Need

1. Faith in Jesus Produces Obedience and Love (vv. 1–3)

John begins with a simple assumption: faith comes first. Believing that Jesus is the Christ—the King of the cosmos—is more than mental agreement. It requires loyalty. Faith makes us God’s children, giving us a new identity and new expectations.

And what does this new family do?

We love.

For John, love for God and love for God’s children are inseparable. Love is not merely a feeling or warm sentiment—it is action. We love God by keeping His commandments: forgiving, showing mercy, serving, helping, and seeing others with honor. These aren’t burdensome tasks. They are the natural way of life in God’s kingdom, empowered by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22–23).

To love well, we must (1) declare our faith in Jesus, (2) choose to love His people, and (3) ask God to empower us.

2. Faith in the King Overcomes the World (vv. 4–5)

John reminds us that every child of God “defeats this evil world.” Our victory does not come from withdrawing or fighting harder—it comes from being made new. New birth gives us a new identity and a new allegiance.

Faith is the means of victory. Left to ourselves, we fall prey to deception, fear, and the false promises of the age. But loyalty to King Jesus anchors us in truth. There is no alternative path to life. The world doesn’t need our cleverness; it needs rescue. And God has provided that rescue in Jesus.

3. God Himself Testifies That Life Is in His Son (vv. 6–12)

John draws our attention to God’s testimony about His Son. The “water and blood” point to Jesus’ baptism and His sacrificial death—bookends to His earthly ministry. The Spirit affirms this testimony: in Scripture, in the apostles’ teaching, and in the inner witness of God’s people.

Rejecting Jesus is not merely a disagreement; it is calling God a liar. But receiving the testimony leads to life—true life, the life of God Himself, present within us now through the Spirit.

John makes the point unmistakable:

If you have the Son, you have life.

If you do not have the Son, you do not have life.

Living in the Confidence of King Jesus

What is the Point?

John gives us clarity about faith:

• Faith leads to love and obedience. We can love in small ways because we’re made in God’s image, but to love consistently, sacrificially, and joyfully requires surrender to Jesus.
• Faith leads to victory over the world. Our allegiance to King Jesus defines our identity. His victory becomes our victory.
• Faith rests on God’s testimony. The Scriptures, the work of the Spirit, the history of the Church, and transformed lives all come together to assure us that Jesus is the true King.

Big Idea: The confidence we need to love each other and to overcome the world comes from knowing Jesus is King.

Living out God’s love is challenging. What if we get hurt? What if people take advantage of us? What if nothing seems to change?

Our courage does not come from outcomes—it comes from the truth that Jesus has already won. His life, death, resurrection, and ascension declare that the world’s power is broken. So we live like people who belong to a victorious King.

A Challenge 

In your prayers this week, ask God to empower you to love. Love is how we are known as God’s people. And we desperately need His help to love well.

Final Thought

Because Jesus is the King who has already overcome the world, we don’t love out of fear—we love out of confidence. Every act of forgiveness, every step of obedience, every moment we choose love over resentment declares to the world:

My King has already won.

Paul’s Ponderings is a blog dedicated to reflecting on Scripture and encouraging believers to live out their faith with love and purpose.

Allegiance to King Jesus

What does it mean to pledge allegiance—not to a nation, not to a flag, not to an ideology—but to King Jesus?

That’s not just a rhetorical question. It’s the central question every disciple must answer.

In the United States, allegiance often brings to mind patriotism and national pride. From childhood, we’re taught that loyalty to our country is a moral virtue. Many Christians assume that faith and patriotism naturally go together.

But the call to faith in the New Testament was never just about private belief. It was a public declaration of loyalty to a person—Jesus, the crucified and risen King.

When we see faith as allegiance, we gain a clearer sense of what it means to follow Him.

Allegiance Reordered

To pledge allegiance to Jesus means our ultimate loyalty belongs to Him alone.

It’s not about the words we say but about how we live. Allegiance to King Jesus reorders our priorities and reshapes our identity.

• It means trusting Jesus over political leaders, parties, or ideologies. 
• It means obeying His teachings, even when they clash with the values of the world around us. 
• It means living as citizens of heaven before citizens of any earthly nation. 
• It means choosing love, service, and sacrifice over power, control, and fear. 

True allegiance is both deeply personal and profoundly public. It’s declaring with our lives: Jesus is Lord—and there are no rivals.

A Different Kind of Power

Allegiance to King Jesus looks radically different from allegiance to worldly powers. Governments and empires rule through coercion, force, and law. But King Jesus reigns through love, sacrifice, and the Spirit’s transforming power.

In Salvation by Allegiance Alone, Matthew Bates argues that the Greek word for faith (pistis) is best understood as allegiance—loyalty to Jesus as King.

If that’s true, then we must ask: what kind of King is He?

Jesus is not a tyrant but a servant. In Mark 10:42–45, He told His disciples that earthly rulers “lord it over” their people, but He said, “Not so with you.” Greatness in His Kingdom is found in service. Even the King Himself came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Christian Anarchism embraces this Kingdom alternative. It rejects coercion and domination and instead chooses the power of the cross—where love and sacrifice define what true strength looks like.

A Kingdom of Unity

Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28:

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

In King Jesus, the dividing walls that society builds—ethnic, social, political, or gender-based—are torn down. Allegiance to Jesus unites us in ways no nation or ideology ever could.

The world thrives on division: us vs. them, powerful vs. powerless, winners vs. losers. But in God’s Kingdom, there are no second-class citizens—only brothers and sisters, equal at the foot of the cross.

That’s why Christian Anarchism insists that no state, class, or political label defines who we are. Only Jesus does.

Our identity isn’t “American Christian,” “conservative Christian,” or “progressive Christian.” It’s simply Christian—citizens of heaven and members of God’s holy people.

Allegiance Lived Out

Allegiance to Jesus isn’t abstract—it’s lived.

Jesus said that all obedience rests on love: love for God and love for neighbor (Matthew 22:37–40). Allegiance to Him means living out that sacrificial love in tangible ways.

• Choosing service over status. 
• Building communities of belonging. 
• Rejecting violence and coercion as tools for change. 
• Living out justice, mercy, and humility—even when it costs us. 

To live this way is not to withdraw from the world but to bear witness to another kind of Kingdom—the one already breaking into our world through Jesus.

The True Allegiance

When Paul wrote Galatians 3:28, he wasn’t crafting a slogan. He was announcing a new reality. In King Jesus, the old hierarchies and divisions are finished.

That’s the heart of Christian Anarchism: not rebellion or chaos, but radical allegiance to the one true King.

It’s living so that our families, churches, and communities reflect the justice, peace, and love of God’s eternal Kingdom.

So the question remains: whose kingdom are you pledging allegiance to?

The nation’s? The world’s? Or King Jesus’?

Because only one allegiance leads to life, justice, and true freedom.

Paul’s Ponderings is a blog dedicated to reflecting on Scripture and encouraging believers to live out their faith with love and purpose.