The Turn
It’s been a minute since I’ve had the honor of writing a guest blog for you. Jodi shares and writes so relatable, real, and impactful. I’m so proud of how she keeps putting out such depth of insight each week. I know she’s so thankful for each of you that are part of her blog family. (thank you Babe!)
So, let’s dig in ~
2 John 1:3 says, “Grace, mercy, and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ—the Son of the Father—will continue to be with us who live in truth and love.”
We all like the idea of having grace, mercy, and peace available to us. It’s amazing to realize how freely God gives that to us through Jesus. It’s not something that we can earn, but it’s freely given.
I love looking up words in the original language as it always seems to unlock more understanding. So, what does grace, mercy, and peace mean in the Greek? I’m glad you asked. :-)
Grace = unearned favor and kindness; God freely extends His favor and kindness by reaching (inclining) to people because He is disposed to bless (be near) them.
Did you see that? God’s natural inclination is towards us to bless us and be near us! The word grace actually is a description of God’s character and passion to be near YOU. He is disposed to be near you. Next time you feel distant from God, know that your feelings aren’t greater than His character. He is for you, as the song “The Blessing” says (see the song below as it is sung by 154 Nations in 257 languages – heads up, Jodi said while watching this, “this should come with tissues”).
Mercy = pity and compassion; kindness or good will toward the miserable and afflicted, joined with a desire to relieve them.
This speaks of how God is actually stirred with sympathy because of our suffering, distress, and misfortune. What’s that mean for you? He isn’t just stirred emotionally towards you; He is stirred to action to give relief and aid to you. He has compassion and good will towards you and desires to relieve you. YOU are seen by Almighty God, and He has compassion for YOU!
Peace = undisturbed wholeness; the tranquil state of a soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and content with its earthly lot.
We see here that truly having a soul free of inner commotion, unaffected by disturbing emotion, and un-agitated comes from God alone through Jesus Christ. What’s that mean? It means that YOU can indeed have peace within. It also means we can’t find quietness of our soul outside of Jesus. We all try at times but to no avail. We try to distract ourselves many ways (i.e., sports, gaming, social media, entertainment, shopping, etc.) but distraction is no substitute for peace – the tranquil state of the soul.
So, we see that grace, mercy, and peace comes from God to us through Jesus. The scripture goes on to say that those “will continue to be with us who live in truth and love.”
Okay, so now that we understand that grace, mercy, and peace come from absolutely no effort of our own but solely by God’s affection towards us, we now see a turn. The turn is how these CONTINUE to be with us who live in truth and love. Notice it doesn’t just say truth or just love. It’s supposed to be both.
We live in a world that likes throwing its weight of “truth” around. I put it in quotations because we live in a world of our own truth. That doesn’t mean it’s legitimate truth but just what we CALL truth.
What is truth? It is reality; the actual state of a matter; an indisputable fact. See, truth eventually proves itself, well, true. It can be buried, overlooked, dismissed, and laughed off, but in-the-end truth has the last laugh. Truth eventually reveals itself as the truth. Just because we believe something to be true doesn’t make it true. Time has a way of proving what truth is. The truth of God has all of eternity to prove itself. God’s truth is not threatened by popular opinion, bias, wishes, coverups, denial, or even lies. Eternity is on the side of God’s truth and will unveil it eventually. As God reveals His eternal truth to us, we’re to live in that truth.
John (the author of the verse) doesn’t just say live in truth but says, “live in truth AND love”. Why does it say that? It’s almost like John knows it’s something we’re not so good at. As believers we can be the worst at wielding the sword of truth in our world. Truth without love, as one commentary says, “becomes cold, stern, and even cruel”. We have seen plenty of that modeled which is a big reason why those that don’t know Jesus reject Christianity. The sad thing is they aren’t really seeing Christianity, they are seeing self-righteousness disguised as Christianity.
Yes, we’re to live in God’s eternal truth, even when it’s not popular or not what we want ourselves (ouch!). However, we’re also to live in love. What is love? It is a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. I think we would all agree that is largely missing in our world, including those of us that call ourselves Christian.
What would our world look like if we lived in passionate affection for those around us? Those we agree with AND disagree with. Those who believe like we do AND who don’t. Those who look like us AND don’t. Those that act like us AND don’t. You get what I’m saying.
It’s one thing to understand these things conceptually but it’s more important to determine what we can apply in our everyday lives. Regarding truth, are we swayed by popular opinion? Let’s hold firm to God’s eternal truth even when it disagrees with our liking. Regarding love, are we cold and cruel? Let’s show affection as God has shown us, especially to those that it doesn’t come natural with. As we do, we will live in and be conduits of God’s grace, mercy, and peace in our world.
Know that God is near you and is for you. Check out the song below.
Dean
You can connect with Dean at: on IG and Twitter @deancross1 and of course FB. xo
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