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stay with him

1 John 2:18-27 (JDV)

1 John 2:18 Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know that it is the last hour.
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; because if they had belonged to us, they would have stayed with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.
1 John 2:20 But you have an anointing from the Sacred One, and all of you know the truth.
1 John 2:21 I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth.
1 John 2:22 Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 2:23 No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.
1 John 2:24 That you have heard from the beginning should stay with you. If what you have heard from the beginning stays with you, then you will stay in the Son and in the Father.
1 John 2:25 And this is the promise that he himself made to us: permanent life.
1 John 2:26 I have written these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.
1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing you received from him stays in you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, stay with him.

stay with him

Some time in the first century, there was apparently an exodus from the Church. A number of people who were thought to be Christians left, and started their own groups. Then they sought to convince those who stayed to leave as well. John called these people antichrists. He chose a word that connoted an appropriate sense of fear and repulsion. He wanted to remind the believers how serious it is to defect from the body of Christ. He wanted to encourage those who claimed to be Christians to stay with Him.

LORD, we want to stay with you.