One must realise that it’s easy to misunderstand the Bible if you only read one verse at a time. It’s so easy to go off track if the context, not only of the chapter but also the entire Bible, is not well understood. 

I really like the Message translation because it puts God’s Word in today’s words. It is a paraphrased translation. I found this good definition on a website: 

When paraphrasing, comprehensibility is of utmost importance to the translator. This sometimes results in extended texts that are considerably longer than the original and often lose the “feel” of the original text. They are also free to insert their own extensions and extra words for the sake of clarity. 

One can so easily misunderstand the following verse: 7So, my dear children, don’t let anyone divert you from the truth. It’s the person who acts right who is right, just as we see it lived out in our righteous Messiah. 

It sounds as if when you do the right things, the things that are right for God, then you’re a child of God. But that’s not it.  

I officiated at the wedding of this couple. The woman is so gentle. If you were to ask me to nominate someone as the best example of living right and living within the will of God, I would nominate her. There is no better example of a Christian than her. 

The only problem is that she does not believe at all. Her grandfather and grandmother never believed in God and did not recognize Jesus as their Saviour. Their mother even less so. 

How terrible that such a good person never got to know Jesus’ love. 

What really makes good deeds good is an encounter with Jesus. Preceded by a realisation of how guilty we are and what the consequences of our wrong actions actually are. And followed by a confession of our sin. 

When we admit our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us all of it. In this wonderful process, we accept Jesus as our Saviour, the One who saves us from the punishment of our sin because He has already paid for it in our place. 

From this process comes a desire to do good deeds, not because we are so good, but because Jesus is so good. Out of gratitude that Jesus died for us, we then cannot help but want to do good deeds. 

Perhaps this is a bit of a wake-up call for all of us. Perhaps we need to look again at the quality of our deeds. Are our deeds a reflection of our faith in God? Do our deeds tell the world out there how good our relationship with God is? 

Let’s make sure that we walk the talk. Let our deeds be good and true proof of our steadfast relationship with God. May we make others thirsty and hungry to also want to be in such a healthy relationship with our Heavenly Father. 

Scripture
1 John 3:4-10 

Reflection
Is there a chance that your way of life could lead others to Jesus?
What actions should become more a part of your way of life?
What actions should no longer be a part of your way of life? 

Prayer
Father, some of my deeds are smelly, and I know they push people away rather than pull them closer to You. I need your help so much. Amen.