I want to know You more

"We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. Whoever says 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did." --1 John 2:3-6

Whew! Quite a few if-then statements here, all basically saying the same thing.

If we obey his commands and walk as Jesus did, then we have truly come to know him and God's love is complete in us.

If we don't obey, then we are liars and hypocrites.

Yikes!

[It's not salvation at stake, just our everyday life of trying to know him more.]

Author Brennan Manning has said, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." I wrote about this idea a little bit a few months ago. I can't change the way other people walk. But I can change myself.

My Life Application Study Bible has this note: "To 'walk as Jesus did' or living as Christ did doesn't mean choosing 12 disciples, performing great miracles, and being crucified. We cannot merely copy Christ's life -- much of what Jesus did had to do with his identity as God's Son, the fulfillment of his special role in dying for sin, and the cultural context of the first-century Roman world. To walk today as Christ did we must obey his teachings and follow his example of complete obedience to God and loving service to people."

Our GEMS theme song for this year is "I Want to Know You More." We're going to be teaching the girls how to "Get Wisdom" from the book of Proverbs. This should be the desire of ALL of our hearts. Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.  What will your walk look like today?