3 JOHN

Chapter 1

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are…3 John 1:5 – A simple, yet wonderful, truth stood out to me as I read this passage. That in Christ strangers can become brothers and sisters. That there are people all across the world that worship the same God you do and even though you have never met them they are your close brother and sister in Christ! Be thinking about this truth as we see unfamiliar faces walking into our churches on these holiday services or when we are in the hustle of shopping. Every person you see is either a brother/sister in Christ or could be someday if someone like you shared Jesus’ love with them. Let’s make sure we welcome them warmly and acknowledge people today as family. Maybe they aren’t your spiritually family yet, but I betcha they’d be more open to hearing about Jesus if you treat them with kindness rather than the rudeness that people are showing each other so often in this season. Love people today like Jesus would. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 755

I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. ¹⁰ So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. 3 John 1:9-10 – Now I highly doubt anyone has been game planning their new year’s resolution to “not be a Diotrephes” this next year, but if you were, you’d be making a solid choice! What we learn from this passage is Dio was first not acknowledging the authority of the apostles, he was not welcoming in those who believed, he stopped those who wanted to welcome them in, and even sought to put the welcomers out of the church! In short, it sounds like Diotrephes didn’t want change and didn’t want the church to grow with new believers. Let’s not be a Dio this next year. Change is inevitable, no matter how hard we fight against it. One extremely positive change will be new people coming to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. As we invite those new believers into our church families, do you know what will happen in our church family? Change. Each person will bring in a different dynamic and our family will look a little different than it did before. Still worshipping the same Jesus, just our family will look a little different now with new members in it. The best thing we can do is embrace the change by embracing the new believers. Yes, things will be messier than it was before and different than it was before, but we’ll have new baby Christians that we get to love on and guide into a mature walk with the Lord. And babies are messy sometimes! Let’s make the choice today that we’d rather have a noisy, messy, yet filled with new believers church than a quiet, clean, empty of new life church family. I know which church I’d rather be a part of, and I also know which church Jesus would want to be a part of too. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2589