Open the Bible UK Daily

Let not sin... reign in your mortal body. Romans 6:12 Notice, Paul does not say, “Don’t let sin remain in your body.” He says, “Don’t let sin reign in your body.” Sin’s power over you is broken, but its presence in you remains. And we are called to engage in a battle with the sin that remains, so that it does not reign. The garden will always produce weeds. The gardener’s job is to pull them out b...

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 Notice that John includes himself: “If we say we have no sin...” Even the apostles could not say that they were wholly free from sin. The impulse to sin remains within every Christian, even while we walk in the light. Writing to believers, Paul is also quite clear that while we truly love Jesus, and truly desire...

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8 Perhaps you have come out of the darkness. You may have been at one time like the prodigal son, but you have renounced works of darkness. You have forsaken evil ways. You have returned to the Father, and you have no interest in going back. Perhaps you are seeking to walk with the Lord in the light of His Word. Y...

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practise the truth. 1 John 1:6 John presents us with two appropriate responses if we are walking in darkness. 1. Renounce the lie “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie... ” (1 Jn. 1:6). The lie is that sin doesn’t matter—that we can walk in darkness and have fellowship with God at...

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105 What does it mean to walk in the light? It means: 1. Submitting yourself to the light of God’s Word “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (119:105). If you want to know what pleases or offends God, you have to let Him tell you. The way He does that is through the Bible. 2. Confessing your sin in the light of God...

If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. 1 John 1:7 Walking in the light is often misunderstood, so let’s clear away two misunderstandings: 1. Walking in the light is not perfection. This is good news because if it meant being completely free from sin, no one would ever have fellowship with God. The Bible never teaches that we must be free from all sin t...

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practise the truth. 1 John 1:6 Here is a person who claims to have fellowship with God. He will give you the clearest testimony. He will tell you that he is reading his Bible. He will say he wants to honour the Lord in all that he does. But notice the word “while.” This person claims to have fellowship with God whil...

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5 Where does the Christian message begin? What is the first thing that people need to know about God? Many would say the gospel begins with the love of God. “God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son” (Jn. 3:16). But the first thing John tells us is not that God is...

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:13 How can I be sure? This may be the number one question that believers ask. And it is rightly asked by thoughtful believers. The question of assurance is pressed on us for several reasons. 1. Many people are abandoning a faith they once professed A thinking person might r...

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 This is what God does for every person who is in Christ: 1. God doesn’t count your sins against you “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (5:19). The reason a Christian is reconciled to God and has peace with Him...

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 In the Gospels, we find three witnesses—an angel, a devil, and God the Father—testifying that Jesus is without sin. The witness of the angels: When the angel came to Mary, he said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy” (Luke 1...

Whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. 1 John 3:20 John writes to Christian believers, and he says, “Whenever our heart condemns us...” He does not say “if,” he says “when” because every Christian has a new heart. If you are a Christian today, your new heart is sensitive to sin, hates its presence, discerns its subtlety, and longs for the day when i...

The accuser of our brothers... Revelation 12:10 Satan is sometimes referred to as the accuser of Christian brothers and sisters. The reason for this is that he works against you, Christian, by bringing to mind your sins and failures in an attempt to make you lose heart. Satan only uses this strategy with believers. Why doesn’t he use this strategy with nonbelievers? Because it would be counterprod...

He will convict the world concerning sin. John 16:8 You might expect that people who are far from God would have a much greater awareness of their own sin, but exactly the opposite is true. It is actually those who are pursuing a godly life who have a heightened awareness of their own sin. The reason for this is that the first work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of sin. He comes into our live...

If anyone is in Christ... 2 Corinthians 5:17 If you judge yourself according to the flesh, you’ll always be looking down on others because you see yourself as having more going for you than they do, or you will always be losing heart, because others have more gifts, talents, advantages, and opportunities than you. Here’s the good news: Jesus Christ does not regard you according to the flesh. Jesus...

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 If you are in Christ, you are a new creation. This is true of every Christian. Being a new creation means that there is more to you than who you are according to the flesh. You have been reconciled to God. You have been adopted into His family. You have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. And the Holy Spirit lives i...

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. 2 Corinthians 5:16 The things that make us different according to the flesh, are overwhelmed by the new life that we share in the body of Christ. In the flesh, we lived for ourselves, and our death would mean passing into condemnation. But Jesus died to change all that. Who we are in the flesh died with Him, through His atoning death...

Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. 2 Corinthians 5:16 Paul is saying, “I thought of Jesus as a man born into a poor Jewish family, raised in an obscure village, a carpenter who hung out with some embarrassing friends and died early in life.” And in the Gospels, many people dismissed Jesus because they regarded him according to the flesh: In Ma...

We regard no one according to the flesh. 2 Corinthians 5:16 Here are five more things that often shape our first impressions of others: 6. Gender: God has made us male and female and this has given rise to many of the cultural debates of our time. How do we deal with the things that make us different? 7. Work: What is your work? Manual labour? Business? Education? Healthcare? Science? Family? Unde...

We regard no one according to the flesh. 2 Corinthians 5:16 What does it mean to regard someone “according to the flesh”? It is to form an impression about people from the most obvious things about them. Here are five things that can easily shape our first impression of others: 1. Appearance: You might say, “Mrs. Jones is the tall lady with the dark curly hair and the green coat!” That’s a descrip...

One has died for all. 2 Corinthians 5:14 Jesus “died for all,” so there is hope for you. Because everything God has done in Jesus Christ on the cross to change your life and death can be yours today — no exclusions. No one is beyond the bounds of the grace that God has poured out in Jesus. If Jesus “died for all,” then there’s love in the heart of Jesus for all. He can fill you and change you with...

Behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honour you...

The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 One of the barriers that holds many people back from knowing, and being controlled by, the love of Christ is the idea that true happi...

Be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29 The book of Hebrews was written to people who believed in and trusted Jesus Christ. It tells us what is true of us when we are in Christ. In chapter 12, the writer recalls the scene from Exodus 19, the giving of the Te...

The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this... 2 Corinthians 5:14 Now Paul is going to give us one conclusion, and when your mind believes this, the love of Christ will control your heart. Here it is: “One has died for all, therefore all have died” (5:14). To understand this, it is important to remember that death can be one of two things: a passing into condemnation, or an entr...