Session 1
1st John 1:
1 - 17
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Vss. 2: 7 – 14,
WS: Unloving People -- VS. 2: 9 – 11, It is not possible to hate your neighbor and live in the light.
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Vss. 1: 1 – 7,
WS: The experience of Eternal Life – this is not something we add on to life, but rather an awakening to the humane and gracious life that reveals God already living in us.
IHOPer Reflections: The solution was to move from darkness to light. Turn on the light. Get lit! One IHOPer noted that it is not possible to “turn on” the darkness, while it is possible to turn off the light. Another added, “The darkness is scary, and you can loose your sense of direction. Another observed that mushrooms need darkness and manure to grow, but in the process they take something “bad” like manure and give back something good like oxygen.
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Vss. 1: 8 – 10,
WS: Self-deception --- Denial. Gnosticism’s believed that Christ was only a spirit.
IHOPer Reflections: This material is not Greek but is Oriental. Because of the Trade Routs, the traders picked up Oriental belief systems and brought them back to be applied to the Early Church.
Another IHOPer notes that the Temple of Diana was at Ephesus. Also the material in Vss. 2: 12 – 14 can be understood metaphorically as Children who are just beginning in the freedom of their faith in Christ; as Young Men who are in their maturing years of faith; and as Fathers who are fully mature. Also, the IHOPer noted the same perspective is used by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: 13 in the theological formula of Faith, Hope and Love as a progression for the development of a personal faith.
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Session 2
1st John
2: 18 –
3: 18
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Vss. 2: 18 – 27,
WS: Vss. 2: 18 – 19, Members were leaving the fellowship; Vss. 2: 22 – 23, Members were denying the experience of Jesus Christ as the Son of the Father. This relationship Gut Trip Analysis maintains is not moral, nor supernatural, but is both empirical and indicative as being reflective of authenticity rather than as an achievement.
IHOPer Reflections: One IHOPer noted that the church at Ephesus was troubled by Greek Gnosticism that maintained that the Christ was an illusion. Another IHOPer mentioned the heresy of Antinominianism in which the Christ is a spirit.
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3: 11 – 21,
WS:
Specifically—Vss. 3:19, 20, This is how we set our hearts at rest by loving one another. We belong to the Truth that is experienced as having our hearts set at rest in the presence of God experienced as Perfect At-One-Ment. We know we are not living in the Truth when our hearts are restless and we are condemned. This happens because God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything. (God knows everything because God is the essence of everything; everything has its is-ness in this archetypal foundation.
IHOPer Reflections: Not words but actions; we are born of God.
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2: 28 – 3:10,
WS:
Vs. 3: 1, World not know us because it does not know Christ;
Vs. 3: 4, Sin is lawlessness. People keep on sinning;
Vs. 3: 7, Being led astray (by Gnostics);
Vs. 3: 8, The Devil’s work (Gut Trip treats the Devil as the Big Liar that turns us away from the Truth to an illusion that we are victims rather than victors);
Vs. 3: 9, Not doing what is right—not loving the brother, nor practicing righteous obedience.
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Session 3
1st John
3: 19 – 5: 4
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4: 1 – 4: 3,
WS: False prophets and spirits that present a message that says, “Neither surrender to the judgment, nor awaken to fulfill our intended creation, nor working for justice and mercy.
IHOPer reflections: The lack of love was the surface problem.
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Vss. 4: 7 – 4: 21, and 5: 1 – 5: 4,
WS: Chapter 4: 7 – 21 – Awakenment to living our spiritual/authentic existence.
Chapter 5: 1 – 4 – Embracing the judgment of our human existence and in this way missing the mark of our intended creation.
4: 7— Sacrificial love;
4: 13— Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son: the demonstration of living the Awakened Life;
4: 16—The revelation of God within us: the expression of At-One-Ment as our intended purpose.
5: 1—Carry out the commands: Fulfill your intended purpose, perform acts of love, and work for justice and mercy.
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Vss. 4: 1 – 4: 3,
WS: False prophets and spirits that present a message that says, “Neither surrender to the judgment, nor awaken to fulfill our intended creation, nor working for justice and mercy.
IHOPer reflections: The lack of love was the surface problem.
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Session 4
1st John 5: 4
5: 21
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Vss. 5: 16 – 21,
WS: Two kinds of sin— wrong doing (menial separations) and the sin that leads to death (mortal separation).
Vs. 19, The sin that leads to death is characterized in the following ways:
1) Gnosticism— repudiated sin, and affirmed that Christ Jesus was nothing but a spirit that really did not die;’
2) Blasphemy—Note that this is not a moral category that identifies “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” Rather, blasphemy is attributing to Satan what rightly belongs to God. For example, see: Matthew 10: 32 - 33, Mark 8: 38, Luke 9: 26, and Luke 12: 8 – 9. Another way to look at blasphemy is being unable to determine right from wrong.
3) Deliberate Apostasy – Living without the hope of reconciliation or forgiveness. It is substituting idolatry for God. See Hebrews 6: 4 – 6, and 12: 16 – 17.
IHOPer Reflections:
Self-glorification. What we still do and get away with it.
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Vss. 5: 3 – 5,
WS: These verses are absolutely astounding!
Vs. 4, Everyone is born of God. We are God’s children! To this end it is necessary to set aside our disbelief by surrendering our egos, that is our human/natural condition, and submit ourselves in total dependence on our creator.
The questions raised for the IHOP was, “Do you love God? If so, how do you know?
Vs. 3 supplies the answer. This is love for God:
1) We obey, or surrender to, God’s commands which include the Divine Commandment, the Golden Rule and the Great Commissions;
2) Everyone who is Awakened (“born of God”) overcomes the world in which we consider ourselves Human Beings having a Spiritual Experience;
3) The victory is that this relationship to God’s love overcomes our human inclinations. The result is that we awaken to the reality that we are created by God’s love to live the humane and gracious life working for justice and mercy.
Or, to summarize:
a) We obey God’s Commands to live the awakened life;
b) We overcome the world by pulling every thing we are and have through the cross by asking WWJD.
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5: 19 and 21,
WS: Vs. 19, The world is under the control of the Evil One that promotes the message that because the living end in death, and because of the anxiety surrounding this anticipated situation, that we are hopeless. Unfortunately, this IS the case.
However, we are not hopeless because of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and his subsequent resurrection. This is the demonstration that, like Christ, we can die to the barriers preventing us from living the hopeful life in spite of –or even because of- our human condition. Humanity is free to choose obedient surrender to the experience that it is not our hopeless estate that defines us. Rather, we are defined by our surrender to God through the cross of Christ; i.e., Christians are the one’s who pull their human experience through WWJD.
Vs. 9, accepting men’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater
WS: The testimony of men and God is the same message. The reason why God’s message is greater is that it is more immediate – Jesus Christ is THE DEMONSTRATION of the message; there is no mistaking it. The testimony of men is how this demonstration affects our lives. It is by this demonstration that our Spiritual lives become the leaven that transforms our Human lives.
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