The old adage is true.  Children are often more excited to play with the box than the shiny new toy it contains.  After all the toy with its definite shape and preprogrammed lights and sounds comes with its story already on board.   But a box!  A box has limitless stories.  It is a blank page ready to be written, painted, and repurposed by the vivid and fruitful imagination of a child.  And when one epic story ends another can begin. 

The simplest toys are often the most beloved.  For me it was a cardboard box filled with nondescript, unpainted, smooth wooden building blocks.  I have no idea where they came from, but they were a fixture of my childhood.  I can still smell them and feel them in my memory.   Many happy hours were spent sprawling on the floor imagining and reimagining, constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing this and that.  Houses, forts, towns, airports, ships.  And of course, towers!  I learned about planning, design, foundations, balance, interleaving, functionality and aesthetics.   Things that have served me well in life.

Choosing the right blocks at the start is always the path to a solid structure.  And what is true of child’s play is equally true for all areas of life; our vocation, our relationships, our finances, or our spiritual life.  Starting with the wrong blocks can create a structure with poor foundations, balance, usefulness and beauty.  This is equally true with our faith.  If we start with the shaky foundations of our own piety or works or spiritual experiences or theological speculation, it will take very little to shake us when circumstance or skepticism rock our world.

So, what are the solid building blocks for a healthy, growing faith?  And perhaps more critical, how can we grow in our assurance that our faith is real, solid, and lasting?   In the letters of 1, 2 and 3 John, the ‘beloved disciple’ and apostle, writes to his beloved ‘little children’ in the churches Asia Minor to answer these questions.   Their assurance has been shaken by the religious influencers who have declared another Jesus and another gospel.  One without sin or sacrifice.  One that denies who God is and who we are.  One that promotes personal religious experience over sanctification.  The same lies that shake and unsettle our assurance today.

John’s response is immediate and decisive.  In a letter with no niceties, no greeting, no personal notes, the Apostle gets right to the point to show his beloved little children that their assurance begins with the building blocks of faith in the person and work of Christ and the loving obedience that faith produces.  And in doing so he speaks to us today to address our struggle with assurance.

Join us as we examine 1 John 2:1-6 and consider the first building blocks for the assurance of our faith.  We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join our livestream on YouTube.