OK, We're Out of the Boat! Now What? - part 5

The reality of a significantly more intimate setting for worship is beginning to become part of our DNA at Origins. We sang and prayed and worshiped together through some of John's letters to the faithful. Our exodus from the boat started with lessons from Peter, then Luke and Paul, and this week we learned to exercise confidence and cautious discernment from John. Here are some ideas and questions over which to grapple.

1 John 5:1-21

• (3-5) This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
  What commands is John talking about?

• (13-15) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
  Are there times when God cannot hear us?

John’s letter to a house church:

• (4-11) I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as we were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady— not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning— that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
  What kind of deception might we run into?
  Should there be a limit to our hospitality?
  How will we protect the truth when we grow?

Comment with the passion of the 9-0 Saints! Geaux For It!