2 Keys to Knowing Your True Abiding Place

by Beebe Kauffman

Doubt is unsettling. It motivates us to make the most of fewer opportunities in life, and to hold onto our resources more tightly. It causes us to over think our options and to over prepare for the task ahead. It bullies us into second-guessing other people’s preferences and is strengthened when we guess wrong. Doubt costs us time, saps our energy, and stresses us out.

God doesn’t want doubt to weigh down His children’s lives. He wants us to know. He doesn’t want us to look at the difference between His holiness and our sinfulness, and doubt that He wants us to draw close to Him. He wants us to know that He has taken care of the sin problem, and we are welcome to abide in Him because of our faith in Christ. He wants us to be certain that our abiding in Him and His abiding in us is the point of having eternal life.

So in the book of 1 John, God gives us several ways that we can know that we have eternal life, several indicators that we can count on. God urges us to live in the joy and energy of certainty, so we can make the most of our daily Christian lives.

The application title for 1 John is the following:

You can be certain that you have eternal life
when you are abiding in God, and He in you.

Chapter four shows us several earmarks of abiding in God. Read 1 John Ch. 4 in your Bible and then the application below.

Ch. 4  The evidence of a person’s true abiding place is:
1) his confession of Christ, and  (v.1-3, 14-15)
2) his love for others.  (v.7-8, 9-12, 13, 16-18, 19-21)

v.1-3  Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is of God.

v.4-6  God enables His children to discern truth from error and reject error, but those of the world reject truth.

v.7-8  Everyone who loves is born of God, for God is love.

v.9-12  Loving one another is the desired outcome of the high price that God paid to take away our sins, and it shows that He abides in us.

v.13  Loving others also shows that we have the Holy Spirit, because love is a fruit that He produces in us.

v.14-15  Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God and the Savior of the world, God abides in him, and he in God.

v.16-18  The love that we express in this world helps us to be bold in the day of judgment—because we are abiding in God and He in us, we have nothing to fear.

v.19-21  Our love for God is the result of His love for us, and His love should result in our love for our brother.

Other Application:

There is evidence of each person’s true abiding place:

1) Does he confess these things about Christ?
a) Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.  v.2
b) God has sent His only begotten Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  v.10
c) The Father sent the Son as Savior of the world.  v.14
d) Jesus is the Son of God.  v.15

2) Does his life bear the essential characteristic of love for others?
a) Everyone who loves, is born of God.  v.7
b) If we love one another, God abides in us.  v.12
c) God is love, and he who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him.  v.16
d) If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar.  v.20
e) This commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.  v.21

Discussion Questions for This Post:

In your own words, how essential to having eternal life is Jesus, and what great value does God place on us loving one another?

*This adapted excerpt comes from Beebe Kauffman, A Whole Lot of Wonderful—Application of the New Testament for Today (Buford, Georgia: Lighthouse Bible Studies, 2018), 674-675.