Saturday, December 27, 2008

John the Divine: Lover, Seer, Saint

"Everyone who sets one's heart on Jesus as God's Anointed One has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.  By this we know that we love..., when we love God and do what God asks of us.  For this is how we love God, by doing what God asks of us. And what God asks is not burdensome.  Whoever is born of God has a power that is victorious when it confronts the world.  That victorious power is our faith.  Only the one who sets one's heart on Jesus, the Son of God, can succeed victoriously in struggling with the world...Those who don't set their hearts on God have, in essence, made God a liar by not accepting in faith the witness God has given in God's Son.  And this is God's witness:  God gave us unending life, and God's Son is the source of this life.  The one whose heart is set on the Son has life..."  
(1 John 5:1-12) 

(Stained glass window by Helen Maitland Armstrong, in the
Flemington Presbyterian Church, Flemington, NJ)  

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