Faith that Overcomes | 1 John 5:1-12

How many of you have flown in an airplane? Every time we board a plane, we are placing our lives into something we don’t fully understand. Few of us can explain the physics of lift off. We just sit down, buckle up, and trust that 500,000 pounds of metal will leave the ground, climb to 35,000 feet, travel at 500 mph, and carry us safely to our destination. Why? Because our assurance isn’t in our understanding, but it’s in the object we’ve put ourselves in. 

We don’t spend the entire flight freaking out, wondering if the plane will fall out of the sky. We rest because we believe the plane is able to do what it is designed to do. The same is true with our Christian life. We are not sustained by the strength of our faith, but by the strength of the ONE in whom we’ve placed our faith. 

John wrote this letter to us so that we can know we have eternal life. When you know that you are a child of God and loved by God, it makes you fearless and free. You don’t worry that you’re not going to make it; you can overcome the world. John shows us that the faith that overcomes is revealed by what it produces, grounded in what it believes, and sustained by the assurance it experiences.