Romans 1
16 For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ.
It is the power of God at work,
saving everyone who believes...
17 This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight.
This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.
As the Scriptures say,
“It is through faith that a righteous person has life."
John 10
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd sacrifices his life for the sheep. 12 A hired hand will run when he sees a wolf coming. He will abandon the sheep because they don’t belong to him and he isn’t their shepherd. And so the wolf attacks them and scatters the flock. 13 The hired hand runs away because he’s working only for the money and doesn’t really care about the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, 15 just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd.
17 “The Father loves me because I sacrifice my life so I may take it back again. 18 No one can take my life from me. I sacrifice it voluntarily. For I have the authority to lay it down when I want to and also to take it up again. For this is what my Father has commanded.”
1 John 4
7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another,
for love comes from God.
Anyone who loves
is a child of God
and knows God.
8 But anyone who does not love
does not know God,
for God is love.
9 God showed how much he loved us
by sending his one and only Son into the world
so that we might have eternal life through him.
10 This is real love—not that we loved God,
but that he loved us
and sent his Son
as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much,
we surely ought to love each other.
12 No one has ever seen God.
But if we love each other,
God lives in us,
and his love is brought to full expression in us.
13 And God has given us his Spirit
as proof that we live in him
and he in us.
14 Furthermore,
we have seen with our own eyes
and now testify
that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God
have God living in them,
and they live in God.
16 We know how much God loves us,
and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love,
and all who live in love live in God,
and God lives in them.
17 And as we live in God,
our love grows more perfect.
So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment,
but we can face him with confidence
because we live like Jesus here in this world.
18 Such love has no fear,
because perfect love expels all fear.
If we are afraid,
it is for fear of punishment,
and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.
19 We love each other because he loved us first.
20 If someone says,
“I love God,”
but hates a fellow believer,
that person is a liar;
for if we don’t love people we can see,
how can we love God,
whom we cannot see?
21 And he has given us this command:
Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.
1 John 3
1 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. 2 Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. 3 And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.
4 Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. 5 And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. 6 Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.
7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. 8 But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. 10 So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.
11 This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. 13 So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
14 If we love our brothers and sisters who are believers, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. 15 Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.
16 We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person?
18 Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. 19 Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. 20 Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.
21 Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. 22 And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.
23 And this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in us.
This is the disciple, John, writing these words...
Do these few verses seem pretty appropriate & relevant to things these days?
1 John 2
1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin.
But if anyone does sin,
we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father.
He is Jesus Christ,
the one who is truly righteous.
2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins;
and not only our sins
but the sins of all the world.
3 And we can be sure that we know him
if we obey his commandments.
4 If someone claims, “I know God,”
but doesn’t obey God’s commandments,
that person is a liar
and is not living in the truth.
5 But those who obey God’s word
truly show how completely they love him.
That is how we know we are living in him.
6 Those who say they live in God
should live their lives as Jesus did.
1 John 1
5 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you:
God is light,
and there is no darkness in him
at all.
6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God
but go on living in spiritual darkness;
we are not practicing the truth.
7 But if we are living in the light,
as God is in the light,
then we have fellowship with each other,
and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we claim we have no sin,
we are only fooling ourselves
and not living in the truth.
9 But if we confess our sins to him,
he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
10 If we claim we have not sinned,
we are calling God a liar
and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
2 Peter 3
1 This is my second letter to you, dear friends, and in both of them I have tried to stimulate your wholesome thinking and refresh your memory. 2 I want you to remember what the holy prophets said long ago and what our Lord and Savior commanded through your apostles.
3 Most importantly, I want to remind you that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires. 4 They will say, “What happened to the promise that Jesus is coming again? From before the times of our ancestors, everything has remained the same since the world was first created.”
5 They deliberately forget that God made the heavens long ago by the word of his command, and he brought the earth out from the water and surrounded it with water. 6 Then he used the water to destroy the ancient world with a mighty flood. 7 And by the same word, the present heavens and earth have been stored up for fire. They are being kept for the day of judgment, when ungodly people will be destroyed.
8 But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day. 9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment.
11 Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, 12 looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. 13 But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness.
14 And so, dear friends, while you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight.
15 And remember, our Lord’s patience gives people time to be saved. This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him— 16 speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.
