Happy Sabbath, friends. As I type, it is a Thursday. This morning I spent some time in the Word of God before working through my homemaking duties. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to study, and I ended up turning to 2 John. I was pleasantly surprised by all of the nuggets of truth I found there, and I wanted to share them with you.

Please remember that these are simply my thoughts from what I read. I am definitely not a Biblical teacher! But I would love to pass on the encouragement I found this morning. If you have a Bible, feel free to follow along. If you don’t, I would love to send one to you! Please just send your mailing address to me at redeeminghomeblog@gmail.com.

Related: A Restful Day with God

First of all, the word chosen in the first and thirteenth verses stood out to me. Yes friends, we are chosen by God to walk in His truth! As someone who has faced rejection in this life on multiple occasions, the thought of being chosen is such a blessing to me. I may have been rejected by people, but I have never been rejected by God.

Moving down to verse four, I pondered the implication of the words, “I was overjoyed to find some of your children walking in truth just as we received as a commandment from the Father.”

First of all, this implies that not all of her children were walking in truth, even if she was. We cannot expect our children to walk in truth just because we do. I think so many of us have been caught up in Proverbs teachings that explain that if we train up our children in the way they should go, they will not depart from it once they are grown. Many teachers even boast of all of their grown children walking in truth on their biography pages. This can make those of us who have not had this experience feel inadequate.

While Proverbs is full of many wise sayings, we have to understand that it talks about what will generally happen if we do or don’t do certain things. If we take each Proverb hyper-literally, then we might be disappointed in the results we see in our own lives. Even David, a man after God’s heart, had a son who sought to kill him!

In verses 5 and 6, we are told that the command to love one another isn’t a new command, but one we had from the beginning. We are told that, “Now this is love: that we walk according to the commands.” Leviticus 19:18 is referenced here. “You are not to take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am YHWH.”

I was so encouraged to continue looking at the Torah (the first five books of Scripture) to glean wisdom about how to live.

I’m going to skip over to verse 9 for just a moment. We are told to stay in Christ’s teaching, and to remain in His teaching has both the Father and the Son. This reminds me of John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), and is the Word of God, or the Old Testament. When this letter was written, the Old Testament was the only “Word of God.” Again, this is more encouragement for me to seek wisdom in the Old Testament. It isn’t old or outdated. It is Christ Himself.

Finally, I was encouraged by verse eight. “Watch yourselves, so you do not lose what we have worked for but receive a full reward.” Saving faith in Christ is a gift from God that we had no part in. Nothing we can do can save ourselves. But we are to continue in good works and will be rewarded for them. Faith without works is dead. I think we often are accused of legalism when we simply are being obedient to the Father. Thinking that you can save yourself by your works is one thing, but if you know that the Lord saved you and are now living out your faith in obedience, don’t be afraid of the word “legalism.”

I really enjoyed reading through and studying this portion of Scripture today. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today. I hope you have a blessed Sabbath with your family.