Word given by Brother Pedro Dong, transmitted by the Life for All Institute, directly from the Pérola auditorium at Estância Árvore da Vida, on 04/09/2024. Text not reviewed by the author.

We encourage you to watch the full message on the IVPT YouTube channel.

 

 

1 Jn 2:20, 27, 3:24, 4:1-6; Phil 1:19; 1 Cor 12:10; 1 Jn 4:7; Gal 1:4; Jn 17:6-8, 11-12

1. The anointing is something living that God has placed within us; it is the Spirit of truth and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This provision is total and abundant. The sacred anointing oil refers to the Spirit of Jesus Christ: four spices added to a hin of olive oil, which represents the Spirit of God. In addition to the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jesus Christ contains the elements added by Jesus in His incarnation: human living, death, and resurrection. This Spirit possesses the power and efficacy of His death and resurrection and is therefore able to supply us in any and every situation. God did not place us on Earth to live governed by rules and laws, but to be guided by life through the anointing.
2. In the church we have gifts that discern spirits, because the spirit of deception is behind the false prophets, and its purpose is to deceive us. John wrote all this because at the time some were posing as prophets of God and yet were preaching heresies. The Gnostics, the Cerinthians and the Docetes taught heresies about the person of Christ and were distorting the truth about His divinity and humanity. Cerinthus, for example, denied that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and considered Him to be the son of Joseph and Mary. He taught that at Jesus’ baptism, the Christ, as a dove, descended upon Him. All of those are the false prophets and antichrists, but we are of God. John had to write these things so that the church would have discernment of spirits to know that there is the spirit of deception trying to distort the truth to deceive the people of God. This is why the anointing in us is so important, which teaches us to discern what comes from God and what does not. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.
3. The systematized world fights against God and His kingdom with all its strength, using all its weapons. Satan uses human logic to fight against faith to confuse the believers. For this reason, we must be completely uprooted from this wicked world, which includes the religious world. Our God and Father has a desire for us to be uprooted from the world without leaving any the smallest root. The world may be colorful and beautiful, but it is perverse. It opposes God and His will by confusing His children. However, we have the anointing within us, and it gives us discernment.
4. Those who speak as false prophets (or antichrists) come from the world, they speak from the world, and those who are from the world listen to them, because they do not know how to discern. Those who have not yet been freed from the world run a great risk of being influenced by “Christian rationalism”, which is the line of Gnosticism. Nevertheless, the apostles who spoke to the believers were from God (v. 6). Those who knew God listened to them and saw that the word was from God, but those who were not from God did not listen to them. Therefore, there are some who value the word that comes from God and others who do not recognize it and do not listen to it. John represented those who are from God, and those who knew God listened to John’s word, because it came from the Father. Moreover, those who do not know God do not accept the prophetic word.
   

   1 Jn 3:12; Gen 2:9, 17; 3:1-7, 4:4-7; Jer 31:31-33; Ez 36:26-27; Hb 8:10; 10:16

5. Starting from 1 John 4:7, we do not want to consider these verses in the conventional way, because everyone already knows them in that sense. In chapter 3, we see that the subject is to love one another. This is something we all already know in theory, yet is this love a reality? Therefore, in the next verse John uses the example of Cain (3:12). In Genesis 2, we see that God had placed in the middle of the garden the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is important to make the right choice between life and death, and this will result either in love, light, and blessing or in hatred, darkness, and the curse. By eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, man chose death.
   
   
6. The serpent deceived Eve with sophistry, contradicting God. He conveyed the idea that God did not want man to have the ability to know good and evil, as He has. In truth, God loves man. He wants to place us in a different line, the line of life. The line of life is simpler and bears much more fruit. When man ate the fruit of the tree, his eyes were opened to discern right and wrong. From then on, they no longer had God, because they had chosen death and the tree that would tell them what to do through the discernment of good and evil.
7. Why was God pleased with Abel and not with Cain? Even after the fall, each person still had the opportunity to choose which path to follow, because God preserved the conscience in man. In Genesis 3:7, it speaks of “doing well,” because there was still a chance to choose the right thing to be approved. If one were to choose the wrong tree, which is the tree of death, sin would already be at the door. This sin is Satan, who is prodding each person to choose death. The choice Adam made, that of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, contaminated all of humanity. We began to act according to right and wrong. Without life, man needs external rules to live, and these are indicated by the discernment of good and evil.
8. I was always taught that a believer cannot drink, cannot smoke, this is wrong, that is wrong. We are governed by rules, but why? Because man has already made the wrong choice. If he chooses death, there is no life to govern, so he is forced to live under these rules of good and evil. But if we make the right choice, we do not need to live under external rules, because what governs us is life itself.
9. It would be foolish to plant an orange tree and, while it is still a seedling, teach it that it must bear oranges and not figs. There is no need to give it rules, because it has the life of an orange tree, and that alone will make it bear oranges. Here at the Estancia there are baby geese. Do they need swimming lessons to learn how to swim? Life itself makes them live like geese. If we make the right choice of the tree of life, it is life that governs us and will cause us to conduct ourselves as ones born of God. Loving one another is part of the essence of this life. It is not about external rules or external law.
10. When God gave the law to the people of Israel, it served as a guardian to keep them until Christ, the reality of choosing life, came. However, God had no intention of forming a Jewish religion based on the law, which was also given to guide the people. If we choose life, we do not really need external laws. The covenant that God would make with the people was to inscribe His laws within them and to put the Spirit within them. This is the law of the Spirit of life. Throughout all the history of the church, in the 19 centuries of degradation, man did not pay attention to this. A Christian always tries to be a good Christian by behaving well and creating rules for himself, but ends up forgetting to go to the right source, which is life.
11. The Lord is blessing our teenagers because of their simplicity. In addition, through the perfecting in PAC, when we walk down the street, we experience that none of our “spiritual baggage” works, but using the prophetic word does. If we are in the tree of life everything works, but in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil nothing works. This principle has deeply contaminated all of humanity and especially the church. We still act based on rules of conduct, our ability and biblical knowledge. We do not have the simplicity to follow life at every moment. Teenagers do not have much biblical knowledge, but have the boldness of the Spirit to carry out a “Come and See,” and therefore, they have brought dozens of teenagers to the church. Why? Because the tree is the right source. That makes all the difference.
    

    1 Jn 4:7-10; Eph 3:16; Jn 3:16; Dt 6:5

12. John warned the people about antichrists and heresies, but his real concern was to talk about being born of God. It is not by knowledge, rules of conduct, or external laws, but it is about life. Be simple, choose life! In the church we are respected, and everyone says amen and hallelujah to us. However, on the street no one knows us. That is the true test of whether we walk by life or by knowledge. That is why colporting is wonderful, and it gives us butterflies in our stomach, because it ends up exposing our true condition. If we are in ourselves, it does not work, but when we choose the right tree, everything flows. It is not about the number of years we have been in the church, or about our knowledge, but about whether we are connected to the right source that comes through the word.
13. The thing that works is the Word of life, which is eternal life itself, Christ Himself. This word of life was announced by the apostle John. When someone believed in the word that came from his mouth, that person was brought into the fellowship of life with him, and this fellowship was also with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. John’s concern is to lead each one of us to the source of life. Just saying that we have to love our brothers does not work, but being connected to the right source does.
14. Verse 7 does not define those who love as being the ones having many years of church life or knowing the Bible from cover to cover, but it says that those who love are born of God and know God. This is the right source. Let us choose life! You will be able to love. Yet it is not you, rather it is the power of the Word itself, the power of life that will make you love your brothers. Love comes from God; He is the One who has to give it. This love comes from the word of life and the fellowship of life. This is why the church life in resurrection that we are living is so important. We are no longer living a facade and appearances. Thank God, today we are seeking reality. Thus, through this word, without realizing it, the love that comes from God is supplying us through the tree of life, and we begin to love our brothers. By practicing all this, we love our brothers more, and it is not something forced or in pretense, because love comes from God.
    
    
15. The verb “to know” in ancient Greek is in the aorist tense, which expresses an action in pure time, which does not have a duration of the process. Therefore, in this “knowing” we cannot define the time in which it occurred; it is knowledge itself that comes from birth. If we are born of God, through this birth we know God. We know God through the life we receive; it is not because He has done something for us.
16. Love comes from God. Whoever has received the Word of life announced by John has been born of God and has been included in the fellowship of life. This life is eternal life; it comes from God. The nature and essence of God is love. Thus, whoever is born of God loves. Just as a duck swims and an orange tree produces oranges, whoever is born of God loves.
17. Likewise, those who do not love, do not know God, because they are not born of Him. They may have been born of God, but they are not living in that life; at that moment, they made the wrong choice and selected death, and thus, they do not know God and do not love. Therefore, this child of God, that is within us, needs to be always keep strong, alive, and active. This divine being that is within us is the inner man (Eph 3:16). Let us ask the Lord to strengthen our inner man. If we keep this divine being that is growing within us always strong, He will lead us to love our brothers and sisters, because He is born of God. It is not my old man, but this new man is the one who is born of God.
18. From the moment we believe in Jesus and receive eternal life, we are born of God. How wonderful is the love of God! He gave His own Son so that today we may be those who are born of God. However, those who are born of God need to live by Christ, by this life. It is not just about having a new life, but this life has begotten an inner man, a living being that is within us. Furthermore, we need to keep it strong, always active through the circulation of life, the word of life, eternal life, so that He may grow and we may live through it.
    
19. We do not love God first, because love does not come from us. God is love; He loved us first, saved us, and gave us His life. When we are born of God, we have His love, even to love Him. Even to love God, we need His own love. In Deut 6:5, there is a commandment to love God, but for this we need the supply that comes from the word. Thus, we come to love God more and more, with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength. It is not our ability, it is by life.
    

    1 Jn 4:10-17; Hb 4:15; 1 Tm 6:16; Jo 15:4-5; Cl 3:14; Eph 4:15-16

20. God sent His Son as the propitiation for our sins. It is very easy for us: we sin, confess our sins, and He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Nevertheless, for God to be able to forgive man, it was a very difficult and painful process.
21. The cover of the ark of the covenant is the propitiatory, and it is on this cover that man meets with God. In order for man to live through Christ and to receive the supply of love so that he can love others and walk as a child of God, he must have fellowship with God, and for this he needs the propitiation. Without it, the two cherubim over the ark of the covenant, which represent the glory of God, would strike him down. Therefore, when the high priest entered the veil, he had to throw incense in the censer to make smoke before the cherubim and then sprinkle the blood on the propitiatory cover, thus fulfilling the requirements of the testimony (the two tablets of the law) that were inside the ark, satisfying the righteousness, holiness, and glory (the cherubim) of God. He accepts him, justifies him, and is ready to speak with him. Today, in the New Testament, there is no need for this complicated process; the Lord has already done everything. All we receive is mercy and grace. God’s life supplies us with everything, and we begin to love one another.
22. Our God dwells in an unapproachable place, and no man has ever seen God, so no one can see that He is love. However, if we are born of God and practice brotherly love in the church, people will see the love of God perfected in us.
23. The apostles were eyewitnesses that God had sent His Son as the Savior of the world. This completely nullifies the arguments of those who want to pervert the gospel. However, it is not enough to simply accept this truth; it is necessary to confess, that is, to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. This is the essential condition for God to abide in him and he in God. In the same way, if the branches abide in the vine [Christ], the vine will abide in the branch and be able to produce fruit. The fruit, in this case, is love. To love, we need to abide in the vine. To practice righteousness and to live a holy life, we need to abide in the vine. Only by abiding do we bear fruit. It is not by our ability to follow rules, but by life, by abiding in the Lord.
    
24. We know love through the new birth, and we believe in the love that God has for us. Whoever abides in love abides in God, because God is love. There is no way to separate love and God. Whoever abide in love, God abides in him.

25. “Love has been perfected among us in this,” in the KJA version in Portuguese, we read: “In this way, love is perfected in us.” Vincent comments that in the construction of this phrase, “in us” is linked to “love,” which is equivalent to “our love.” This could mean that love is perfected “with us,” that is, in communion. I have insisted that love is like a glue that unites perfectly. It is an element that connects, that binds. If we have love among brothers, and between us and God, there is edification. This glue no longer breaks apart. We become a living organism, because we are connected by love. We are perfected by unity.
26. God wants to sanctify us in the truth, and the word of God is the truth, which brings God Himself, who is love. From Christ to us comes the truth, the love of God. We are supplied with the truth, with the love of God, and this results in us being glued, united, connected, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, generating edification in love. Love binds us, builds us up, makes us one. In this way, on the day of judgment, we will come before God with confidence, because we are doing the will of the Lord. Love has had its effect and has bound us all together, and we will hand over to God this living organism in which He governs in life.
    

    1 Jn 4:18-21

27. If we are truly immersed in this love that the word of life provides us, if we live in the fellowship of life, being supplied by this love, today we will live in an environment where there is no fear. When we live in fear, it is because there is distrust among us. We have already lived like this in church, as if we were walking on eggshells, afraid of being criticized. This is not the environment in the church today. The environment in the church is one of love, trust, and bearing one another. It is not about having our eyes open to criticize one another, no. It is an environment of love, and in love there is no fear. Today there is no fear among the co-workers.
28. There is no point in talking about loving God, but not being able to love one another. This love is false, because whoever is born of God, loves. Whoever does not love, therefore, is not born of God. It is better to live by what is born of God, it is better to strengthen the inner man. Let us learn to live in the new man! Today the atmosphere in the church is very delightful, an environment of love, trust, and support.
    
29. No one points the finger at anyone. We are all encouraged in the word of life, in the fellowship of life, in building up the church in love, and in preaching the gospel of the kingdom. This is our task. Let us bring the Lord back!