Me as a ValuableMe
God WANTS You
Sin is not a deal breaker
If you don't want to work through a journal but just want an easy overview of this topic push this button:
Am I really a Christian?
Can I lose my salvation?
Did I do the unpardonable sin?
… the sin to death?
Does My Sin Break My Relationship with God?
This is a membership program.
Since this button does not work at this time everything is free. Lucky you!
Individuals:
$49 a month. While nothing is free, you can be a member with as little as $0 cash.
Opt to honor God with as much or little cash as is available and make up the difference by honoring God directly via Real Acts of Caring (value the Acts at twice the minimum wage).
Church:
$100 per church plus $5 per month per adult church attendee. Opt to honor God with as much or little cash as God leads you to provide and make up the difference by honoring God directly via Real Acts of Caring beyond what you will otherwise do (value the Acts at twice the minimum wage).
Download the journals here...
Except the one some little children do.
Jesus made sure of that.
John starts with Jesus.
Jesus is the "Son". He has a relationship with the Father.
"Jesus" is "God is salvation".
"Christ" is the "anointed one".
Jesus died a horrendous death on a cross and waited for the Father's mercies for your sins and works IN you now cleaning you up, ALL because the Father WANTS to be with you, and He wants you to be the means of angels learning about mercies. Jesus is about the Father and Jesus is about You.
SO...
Who am I... to God?
Who is God… to me?
We follow John’s Original Outline because
If you don’t know John’s original outline you don’t know 1st John
If you don’t know John’s original outline you don’t know Who You Are
Chapter 1:
Journal / Insight 1 :: God WANTS You
Little children: conditional, cancelable commitment to God
God works to have a relationship with you.
Chapter 2:
Journal / Insight 2 :: God KNOWS You
How do we know we are Christians?
The 3 types of Christians
Chapter 3:
Journal / Insight 3 :: God CHANGES You
Young men: permanent relationship with God
Purity of commitment to God and of rule-based caring for man
Chapter 4:
Journal / Insight 4 :: God ENABLES You
Fathers: people oriented
Helping people simply because people matter to God
Chapter 5:
Journal / Insight 5 :: God BELIEVES In You
Us: God makes us victors. Jesus wins, Satan loses.
Which of the three types of Christian are you?
What does God expect out of your type?
What blessings does God give your type?
Sin Is Not a Deal Breaker
3 kinds of Christian. 3 reactions to God. 3 stages of salvation. Which kind of Christian am I?
2 kinds of sin. What is sin to death? Did I do it? Can I? What is sin not to death?
1 Jesus. Just who is Jesus? What does He DO for me?
0 sins. Maybe. John says Christians can sin- and can't. Which is it? Does God make me sinless? Do I have to be sinless to be with God?
-1 Can I lose my salvation? How does John make the lose-your-salvation and can't-lose-your- salvation groups both half-right? (Without mentioning it!)
++ Why is John so repetitive- or is he really?
= God WANTS You. Permanently.
God's question is: Do You WANT God?
Book Points of Interest:
1 John’s original outline is a major feature of the book.
2. Can I lose my salvation? Here is a unique view that John makes available, without even discussing the issue.
3. Did I do the unpardonable sin... the sin to death? John has the answer to what the unpardonable sin is, and if you might do it.
4. John answers the question: does my sin break my relationship with God?
5. 3 main points about Jesus: Son, Jesus, Christ. The distinctions are a big deal for understanding what Jesus did for us, and who He is to us today.
6. God makes us victors. Jesus wins, Satan loses. And we are winners in Jesus.
3000 hours. Direct Bible study. In the Greek. Study, write, unwrite, study, write. Without the distraction of other commentaries. I give my expanded personal translation of 1 John.
1 John by the numbers
Knowing God is more than just a get-out-of-Hell-free card.
Jesus made sure of that.
The Most Important thing you can understand from 1 John is the teaching about God.
The thing you Must Understand in order to understand 1 John is John’s original outline of 1 John. If you do not understand the original outline you will not understand 1 John.
As you go through 1 John you learn who Jesus really is and what He is doing. And you learn who you really are, the 3 types of Christians and which stage you are in right now. And you deal with other things like what is the sin to death, do Christians sin, when and why God really trusts you, and more.
This is a membership program.
Since this button does not work at this time everything is free. Lucky you!
Individuals:
$49 a month. While nothing is free, you can be a member with as little as $0 cash.
Opt to honor God with as much or little cash as is available and make up the difference by honoring God directly via Real Acts of Caring (value the Acts at twice the minimum wage).
Church:
$100 per church plus $5 per month per adult church attendee. Opt to honor God with as much or little cash as God leads you to provide and make up the difference by honoring God directly via Real Acts of Caring beyond what you will otherwise do (value the Acts at twice the minimum wage).
This comes in the form of journals.
I did not manipulate the info in the journals to be all the same length per page. I'm not interested in distorting the info so the length will all be the same.
I did not manipulate the journals to be all the same length.
I did not dumb down the info. Some of it is hard to comprehend. Take in what you can, learn the rest later. I 'only' spent 3,000 hours in the little book of 1 John in the original Greek to learn the ideas in the God WANTS You course. I understand it taking time to learn ideas.
There is space for you to write down- and find answers to- your own personal questions.
There is space for the pastor to give his input. This is important.
There is some more info that does not fit the journal style at all. It can be found in the books Jesus N Me and God WANTS You, depending on which journal you are going through.
Satan's Goals is not in journal style. It is a novel with a lot of historical info.
What inspired the idea for this book?
I got interested when I read an article on “love” by a famous psychologist in 1980. I decided to compare his ideas to God’s ideas. God has a much deeper, different idea of love than psychology does. I did a comparison of love between this well-known psychologist and 1 John. God’s idea of love is way deeper than man’s. In 2000 I started putting in serious time to understand this little book. 3000 hours of time in the last 20 years. That is the equivalent of 1½ years full time work. I had questions.
As I started to study 1 John the seeming contradiction that Christians can sin and cannot sin stood out. How could John say Christians sin in one place and don't sin in another place? It is pretty obvious from the Greek that the idea that John is referring to a state of sin in one place and not in another is not correct; and trying to make one set of verses apply to ongoing sin and the other verses not do so- that doesn't work, either. Even more bothersome is seeing interpretations of the Greek get manipulated toward one's theology in some versions.
And what did he mean when he said that we are anointed ones?
And what does John mean about sin to death and sin not to death?
And why does John use long terms for Jesus like Son Jesus Christ. Why such wordiness, when one word will do? Or will it do?
And just why was he so repetitive?
Writing God WANTS You spanned a time of decades.
I wrote, rewrote, and rewrote again, learning as I went. This was stop and go. I first learned some about 1 John. Then I moved on to other things. I would spend some months working on the book, puzzling through meanings of ideas and seeming contradictions in the book. Then I would move on. Years later I would tackle 1 John again. Slowly I figured out what was being said. Each time I dealt with 1 John I would add to what I had written before, and rewrite as needed. When I finally found the original outline in 2019 the final pieces fell together. The last writing took a year of long hours almost every day. Soon after that I decided to write questions for it. Then I wrote stories to teach the main points. And now the commentary is set up as journals.
Why is the original outline for 1 John so important?
When I started learning about this little book I could not figure out the outline. I did not buy the idea that 1 John was merely beginner level highly repetitive stuff. John may have been old, but he was not senile, which may as well be how people today view his writing. I sensed intuitively there was an outline. I could see it was there as I started to learn distinctions between some of what he taught. And I knew the outline was the key to figuring out how things that seemed to be merely repetitive and even conflicting would be shown to be cohesive and sensible. I did not find the outline until 2019, and I started learning about 1 John in 1980 or so.
When you know the outline you see the logic of the book and ideas you will totally miss otherwise.
What is the big deal about studying in the Greek?
A. There are concepts that you will not find in English translations. And the translations tend to be slanted toward the theology of the translators. The same claim can be made about my translation. Studying in the Greek gives me the ability to look past the biases of translators. I have more options about the meaning of what was said when I study in the Greek, more opportunity to see concepts that I cannot see using English translations.
Available as a book and as a course.
Scholarly Bible materials are set up as journals waiting for your Personal Answers so you can apply God’s teaching to your life.
The journals correspond to the chapters in 1 John:
Includes short stories that give a fun overview of the concepts.AC
Download the journals here...
This is a membership program.
Since this button does not work at this time everything is free. Lucky you!
Individuals:
$49 a month. While nothing is free, you can be a member with as little as $0 cash.
Opt to honor God with as much or little cash as is available and make up the difference by honoring God directly via Real Acts of Caring (value the Acts at twice the minimum wage).
Church:
$100 per church plus $5 per month per adult church attendee. Opt to honor God with as much or little cash as God leads you to provide and make up the difference by honoring God directly via Real Acts of Caring beyond what you will otherwise do (value the Acts at twice the minimum wage).
Jesus
God in the flesh: (He is the “Son of Man”.) Jesus, Who is God, became fully human while still being fully God. Jesus is uniquely the God-Man. Jesus is one of us. He knows what it is to be tempted (though He did not sin), to be abused and to suffer, to laugh, to grow up. God with us in human form Who experienced living by the lifestyle principles the Father wants us to live by.
Jesus "came out of the God": Jesus had and has an eternal relationship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, beyond anything we will experience, a relationship of commonality, unconditional commitment, and so much more. They come from the same stock, so to speak. They are each one all that God is.
Son: (He is the “Son of God”.) Jesus has a relationship with the Father wherein Jesus is like the Father because the Father originates how Jesus acts by providing the lifestyle principles Jesus lives by.
Christ: "anointed one" - As a true full human He receives the lifestyle principles we are to live by from God the Father. You see God in Him.
Jesus: "God is salvation". Jesus is the full source of our salvation: He put His life on the line on the cross to wait for and receive, and now applies God the Father's mercies to us. He forgives our sins, and He transforms us by putting God's lifestyle principles in us so we do right instead of sinning, so you live by light (seeking relationships), being unconditionally committed to the well-being of others, enjoying the relationship of commonality of similarity with God and Christians. In the context of being a true full human, Jesus died for us and now lives for us.
In a covenant with God Jesus provides the forgiveness and the transformation that make us worthy to be in a relationship with God, and brings us back into that relationship. Jesus did not come to earth and just do any old thing that came to His mind to fulfill His covenant with the Father. As God is Salvation He passes on the Father's mercies: He forgives us and implants God's lifestyle principles into us. He transforms us. He agreed to come to earth, to suffer, and then to be glorified.
What did Jesus accomplish? Gives us real eternal life: Removes our sins and our sinfulness by passing on the Father's mercies of forgiveness and of making it so we live by the eternal lifestyle principles of God, so that we affect all around us using those principles, and those effects are eternal.
Jesus, being God and Man, is fully able to do the task of making you into the new improved version of you that He agreed to make you into.
Jesus made a commitment to you. You have rights in the relationship such as having sins forgiven when you confess them and being transformed and blessed and having prayers granted. A Christian influences Jesus with prayers, and Jesus influences him with forgiveness and transformation.
Propitiation: Someone who comes between 2 people, one of whom is offended, and provides something so the offended one is no longer offended but desires a relationship again. Jesus arranged for our forgiveness. He also arranged for us to have favor with the Father, something we lost due to sin. We have this favor because he transforms us to live by the lifestyle principles of God.
Why Jesus takes care of our sin: He is faithful: to the Father to do the job He agreed to do in eternity past, and part of that job is cleaning us up as our Savior; to us, since He promised to give us rest, and part of getting rest involves losing our sinfulness; and to God's lifestyle principles, which involve doing whatever is necessary so we have a full relationship with God, and since cleaning us up is 100% in line with these principles. Watch Jesus, study His life, and you see His mission.
In His purity He makes us pure. Jesus is your advocate, your defender, before God and man.