“WHOEVER CONFESSES THAT Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God” (1 John 4:15). This adds something very important to our being in Christ. Interestingly enough, John now slides almost imperceptibly from being in Christ to being in God. He uses them interchangeably as though they were one. And they are! Nothing is more important than that—to be in Christ is to be in God. Then you can’t go beyond Christ, or apart from Christ if you are to be in God. He is an ultimate!
How do you stay in God and in Christ? The text answers: “Confesses . . . Jesus”—confesses Him as the Son of God, not an example, or doer, but as the Son of God, no less.
Why this confession of Jesus? Is it arbitrary?—a potentate who wants to be acknowledged as supreme? Or is there an inherent necessity to confess Christ if you want to share Christ? Can you share Him without confessing Him? The answer is no.
If the outer without the inner is hypocrisy, so the inner without the outer is also hypocrisy. The whole life must be one—inner and outer. You may be a secret believer in Jesus, but you will be in a belief; you will not be “in Jesus,” for to be in Him means to confess Him by both word and life.
The law of life is: “There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed” (Luke 12:2 KJV )—what is within shall come out for good or ill. If loyalty to Christ is covered, it soon turns to disloyalty and is not there as loyalty, hence there is no “in Christ.” It is a law of the mind that that which is not expressed dies. Expression deepens impression. Nothing is ours till we share it. All Christians are confessional Christians or they are not Christians, except in name.
O Jesus my Lord, how can we love Thee without confessing Thee? Shall the sun’s rays refuse to confess the sun? The child deny its parent? Sooner shall these happen than that I should refuse to confess Thee, my Lord and my God. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall confess Jesus today by thought, deed, and word.
