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Thank you J.D.
What Say You?
I say JESUS. I say HIS teachings!
Short and sweet. To the point.
Prayers for you and your church.
Safe travels!
For His Kingdom and Milwaukee’s Revival,
Jeff in Christ ✝️❤️
Founder, Jesus24365 Ministry (since 2024)
Member, St. Marcus Lutheran Church (since 2023)
Every Moment, Every Day!
http://www.Jesus24365.org
Our little church here in Geraldine, Al finally had to pull out of the United Methodist Conference because of false teaching and unbiblical leadership😢 but oh how seeds are being seen and folks are flooding into our church now to hear sound biblical preaching by our little 44 year old on fire preacher, to God Be The Gliry🙌🏻 Love your wake up call each morning JD🙏🥰
Amen & praise the Lord! 🙌✝️🕊️🙏 With discernment because of our local church leaders, we, too left the main denomination & God has blessed us through the entire process. We are growing by leaps & bounds! All to the glory of God & Jesus Christ 🙌✝️
Thanks J. D. For all you do, along with the work of a pastor! May the Lord continue to bless you, your congregation, and your work in the Kingdom. Amen
Ah yes Linda!! My church here as well in Ohio pulled out. Thing is, most of the error the conference as a whole has turned to wasn’t/isn’t shaded! It WAS/is blatant!
Again..one of my rememberized scriptures.
“when one turns to the Lord the veil is removed. NOW the Lord is The Spirit, and WHERE the Spirit of the Lord is..THERE is Freedom! And we WITH unveiled faces, beholding the Glory of the Lord ARE BEING transformed into His same image from one degree of Glory to another. And THIS comes from the Lord Who IS The Spirit”
Thank you Holy Spirit for leading me/us into all TRUTH.🙌
Praying for you, JD, your family, and those you love.
Excuse my ignorance, but WHAT EXACTLY IS the testimony of the water, the blood and the Spirit? That was not made clear to me in this entry.
Anyone?
The water: his birth and baptism
The blood: his sacrificial death
J. D. I pray that God will be a constant
presence with you during this difficult time
with loved ones in the hospital. I also pray
that he will provide you with an extra measure of His almighty power to accomplish all that you need to do. May the LORD bless you and keep you. ✝️
Blessings, Sarah Yelverton
Thank you. Another word in the Bible that helps me is (roughly) “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Therefore you will know them [false teachers] by their fruit.” Since the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, generosity and self control, good fruit is evident, right?
I have always been horrified by the statements My Truth versus your truth.
I stand on the definition of truth as being what is manifested and present and real and measurable. Not magical or mystical or imaginative.
When people say the spirit told me to go do something stupid or hurtful, I say that’s just something they wanted to do or accidentally did. It’s not the holy Spirit or some mystical magical thing that compelled them or forced them or gave him a hint. The most realistic reason people do something and say it’s the spirit that told them is either they are on drugs or some person is whispering lies in their ear and manipulating them. Or maybe they just are malicious people and they don’t realize it or want to realize it.
I like the idea that the holy spirit is essentially the reality that is all around us. It’s the actual truth because it’s manifested in real not because somebody said it ought to be that way or was that way.
NOTE: I was a little disappointed when I read the Wake-Up Call today, although I fully agree with everything J.D. wrote. It’s what he didn’t address that bothered me, and perhaps it was simply an editorial choice due to limited time and space. I get it. This is not a criticism of J.D. nor of what he wrote today. Rather, this is me trying to express my curiosity about the deeper meaning of this passage. So, please receive it in that spirit.
However, today’s passage contains perhaps the most debated and puzzled over verse in the entire letter, and J.D. didn’t even mention it. I think he probably did not want us to get distracted by going down the rabbit-hole of the debate on this passage. I get that, but my brain seems to run to such rabbit-holes.
1 John 5:6 says, “This is he who CAME BY WATER AND BLOOD — Jesus Christ; NOT BY THE WATER ONLY but BY THE WATER AND THE BLOOD” (ESV, emphasis in ALL CAPS added).
Whatever point John was making here, he thought it important enough to repeat it for emphasis. So, what does John mean when he writes that Jesus is “he who came by water and blood”? Then he emphasizes this with, “not by water ONLY, but by THE water and THE blood.”
Whatever he means by these terms, he tells us in verse 8 that “the water” and “the blood” join with “the Spirit” (the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth) to testify, and that “these three agree.” So, whatever John means by “the water” and “the blood,” he uses them metaphorically here as witnesses in this trial that J.D. refers to. So, how are we supposed to trust in the veracity of these “witnesses” who “testify” along with the Spirit “who IS truth” if we don’t really understand who/what they are?
I agree with J.D. that John is bringing his closing arguments against the false teachers, but what specific false teaching is he confronting? What is the specific point, and how does the agreement of these three “witnesses” help make that point?
Due to time and space constraints in this format (I feel your pain, J.D.!), we can’t really dig down into all the exegesis necessary to fully answer these questions, which is, I’m sure, why J.D. chose not to address them.
Having said that, I do think that we can share a brief summary of the major views, and perhaps provide a little clarity – hopefully not more confusion.
Nearly all scholars seem to agree that “the blood” is a reference to Jesus’ shed blood on the cross. So, the primary debate is about what he means by “the water.”
Some scholars contend that the water is a reference to our baptism and the blood a reference to our participation in the Eucharist – in Communion.
Others contend that the water refers to Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptizer. This is the oldest recorded interpretation.
Still others contend that this combination of blood and water is a reference to the blood and water that flowed from Jesus’ side when the Roman soldier pierced His side with a spear.
While there are strengths and weaknesses of all these views, the view that I personally think makes the most sense is that “the water” refers to the waters of Jesus’ physical birth as a human – as God incarnate. Thus, the water and the blood refer to Jesus’ birth and death respectively.
I think this view fits better with Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus in John 3 about being “born again,” or “born from above,” which He describes as being born “of water and the Spirit.” Of course, there is also debate about what John means in that passage as well.
Here’s the point for me. One of the main “false teaching” John was trying to confront was that Jesus could not have been fully human – that since He was deity, then His fleshly body was an illusion. Others say that Jesus was a mere human and that the “Christ Spirit” descended on Him at His baptism and then left Him at the crucifixion.
John’s point that he first makes in John 1 is that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate, the God-man, the Second Person of the Trinity, all human yet all God. His physical birth and His bloody death provide testimony that He was/is indeed human, while the Spirit of Truth agrees and yet testifies that He was/is also Deity.
I humbly encourage everyone to check this out and come to your own conclusions. Read some commentaries. Look at the evidence. Don’t just agree or disagree with me. Do some due diligence. John thought this was foundational to his argument. So, it behooves us to do our best to understand what he meant.
– BRUCE KNIGHT, “Devotional Pursuit,” in response to today’s “Wake-Up Call” by J.D. WALT, Saturday, 05/31/2025.
Wonderful comments;
To keep it simple, Thank You Jesus. Your love was communicated perfectly this day.
“False teachers attract a lot of followers, but each teacher tends to be his or her own best witness.” Wow! Exactly!!!
I live in Kansas. I’m visiting my sister today in Arkansas. Her life has changed and been very stressful for over a year. Her beautiful sweet 27 year old daughter died last year of an aggressive brain tumor. She fought so hard. She was a newly married bride. Today I shared some thoughts with my sister and her husband from my past daily wake up calls. My sister lives in Little Rock. So just listening to the wake up call (late) and knowing JD and I have been in the same town all day was kind of a blessing. Isn’t God amazing. I’m so sorry for his being in a hospital parking garage. I wonder if it’s the same hospital where Anna Grace left us a year ago.