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The kinds of sins covered by the three examples of worldliness mentioned by John are **** - wanting our own way; greed and pride. It is sometimes diffult to realise that we are guilty of these because we may not intentionally commit such sins. We should however let the Holy Spirit help us to appraise our motives/ actions to see whether they are in line with the way of the Lord.

The 'world' here means any earthly things/ activities that will compromise our spiritual position, purity and walk with the Lord. Loving the world then means setting our hearts/ minds on any thing at the expence of our love for the Lord. Such things (even money)become idols and idolatry is one the greates sins God hates.

John took time to encourage the entire congregation of believers because he wanted them to remain strong in the Lord in times of difficutoes, trials and false teaching. Thus he reminded them that: 1. In Christ they have and will always overome the evil one. 2. They have a Father and have known Him. Knowing that the Awesome and Mighty God is my Father is a great encouragement that gives assuarance of provision, protection and deliverance from diverse calamities. 3. He also reminded them that the Word of God lives in them. The Lord jesus is the Living Word and lives in our hearts. This knowledge strengthens our faith and assures us that we can also know the truth because the Onen who explains the truth is in us.

Unforgiveness and hate blinds us spiritually beacuse when we refuse to forgive, we do not show love and the Bible describes such as walking in the dark. We have to forgive and start lovingg one another so as to live and walk in the light of God.

We can be obedient to Christ without becoming legalistics if do it out of love Him. Love is God centeredness thus depending on the righteousnes of God while legalism is self centered and thus self righteousness.

John assures that if we sin, we have our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, our advocate, who lovingly pleads on behalf to the Father, reminding Him that He (Jesus) has already paid for the penalty for our sin. Such amazing grace!! This gives hope for restoration of relationship with our Father. What comfort! Without this provision, hardly would one soul see God. Praise God. This should howver not be a lisence for us to perpetually live in sin.

Confession means acknowledging/ admitting that we have done wrong agaist what God instructed us not to do. This is important because it is the right step towards restoration of our relationship with Him. When we stop confession, our guilt leads to sickness of sould and body. It also leads to seperation from from God. God has promised us that when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will a) Forgive us our sins. Clense us from all unrighteousness. Forgiveness conerns our salvation while purification is about our guilt. He saved us and continue to make us more and more like Christ by sanctification,

The result when a Christian walks in darkness is that he lies and does not walk according to the truth. This is deception because he pretends to be living right with God when he is not. When a Christian walks in the light, ie does what is according to the Word of God, he has fellowship with God and men. The blood of Jesus cleanses him. When a Christian falls into sin, he should be sincers to admit that he has fallen, thenask God for forgiveness. God will for give him. He should however make and also rely on the Holy Spirit to help continue to resist temtation to sin.

Our fellowsship with one one another is dry because we have no fellowship withe the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and is not based on truth. We can only have deep Christian fellowship with one another if we commit our lives to Christ, walk in the light and not to live in sin

The earlier Roman Christians actaually experienced intense persecuation from the Roman authorities. This ranged from inprisonment, beating to death. Christians today still face similar perils the earlier Christians experienced. This is generally less now but is still prevalent in some Midlle and far Eastern parts of the world and in some northern states of Nigeria. This passage is reassuring all Christians that even in trials and difficulties, the Lord God is on our side to give us victory over our enemies and oppressors. We Christians overwhelmingly conquer in the sense that means that His victiry is our victory even in situation when the enemy seems to have won. The death of Jesus was thought by satan to be victrory for him but it turned out to be overwhelming victory for the Lord Jesus as His death led to the salvation of many souls. God turned it for good.

The significance of the phrase 'if God is for us who can be against us?' is to assure us of our security/ victory in whatever situation because the formidable and omni potent God is with us (on our side in wahtever battle). Satan and his demons are our main enemy (and humans used by them). However, they can not overcome the mighty power of God availabel for us. The evidence presented that God is willing and able to do much for us is that He allowed His only son Jesus to die in our place because He loved us that much. He will stop at nothing to do any other thing for us. This makes me feel secured and great. Praise God.

To be 'comformed to the likeness of His son' means to be changed in our conduct or character to be like Jesus. In practical terms, it means that God is working in us through the Holy Spirit and His Word to make our thinking, behaviour and action or our life style to be like that of Jesus. Paul wants to make it very clear that God has preplaned for us to be like Jesus even before it happens and that we should be brothers and sisters of Jesus. He wants us to be excited about this.

The actual promise in Romans 8.28 is that God is always with his children in evry circumstance and will change any bad situation for their good. This means that God does not cause a bad incidence to happen to His children, He however does turn the bad incident for their good. A typical example of this is the story of Joseph in the Bible. His brothers planned evil against him but God converted to his exaltation and glorification. The promise is subject to two qualifying factors: First, it is for those who love God. The Bible says that the test for loving God is by obeying His commands, walking according to His Word. The second is, it is for those who have responded to the call to follow Him (Jesus).

When the Lord Jesus returns our earthly bodies will be transformed to the glorious bodies of heaven with such radiance! The suffering creation will experience a time of peace and security where there will be no more pain nor death. This will however be for the children of God who have received the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

One of the characteristics of some one who has lost hope is that he wears a gloomy look and complains about every thing. He abandons the things of God such as fellowship, studying the scripture etc. He does not have peace nor joy. In contrast, the one who has eager expectation for a better future goes about with perseverance, joy and remaims carlm despite the hard and harsh circumstances that may confront him. The Christian hope is that Christ has redeemed us for a glorious home in heaven with Him and the Father. This expectation should motivate us to strive to march on no matter the challemges.

The Holy Spirit helps us by uuttering our cries to the Lord. He also guides us by teaching us what to say, how to say it. His action is similar to the intercession role of the Lod Jesus because Jesus is now at the right hand of God pleading and interceding on our behalf. I think we tend to take the Holy Spirit for granted and do not seek for His assistance because we do not see him.

Suffering was Jesus' lot in life in that He came for that purpose- to suffer and die to redeem us from the penalty of sin and death. During his breif stay on earth (33 years), He went through rejection by his brothers and people, humiliation iand beating in the hands of Roman soldiers, unfair trial and judment and eventually, death by crucifixion. However, this was ordained by God as the maximum penalty for sin that must be paid on our behalf. We suffer because we live in a fallen world as a result of the sin of our great ancestors- Adam and Eve. God cursed the earth and proclaimed suffering and pain on the earth. Onother reason for our suffering: It is for us to share in the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ that we may develop our faith and hope for the coming glory which is far greater than the present sufferings. All suffering will end when the Lord Jesus returns to take us to our home of glory.

The idea of being sons and daughters of God is alluded about five times in the stated passage. We are promised being heirs and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus Christ, the son of God. That means that all the Lord God owns is mine too. We are sons and daughters of God right now but this will be clearly revealed when the Lord returns.

The Holy Spirit gives us the confidence and assurance that we have been reconciled and are now children of the most High God. It is wonderful that God, the awesome and Hoyly God is my father! This implies that I'm loved by Him, have whatever I need and I'm secured because I am the son of the Almighty, Elshaddai, Jehovah Jireh who is more than enough and is my provider. If we do not have the personal assurance that we are children of God, we may be frustrated and live miserable lives. We need to ask god to reassure us of our salvation through the Holy Spirit. We laso need to ask Him to increase our faith to believe Him.

The deeds of the body are our sinful actions. To mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit means to put to death all those activities that are sinful. It means submitting to the Holy spirit of God to lead and guide us. Putting daeth the deeds of the flesh look like and is taking every measure to shun sin by willfully avoiding any thing that leads to sin using our own efforts. In actaual sense, it means allowing the Holy Spirit to lead. To be led by the Spirit is to obey whatever He says. When He says don't do that, you obey Him willingly. Putting to death and being led by the Spirit fit togeteher because obedience to the Spirit is our own decision. We have a choice to obey or not to. Thus our initial decision to obey is essential before the Spirit takes over the leading as He will not force us to do any thing. How much of this is us? A lot depends on our willingness to obey. Once we have taken the first step to submit ourselves, the Spirit provides the overwhelming power to overcome.

No. We do not have to sin from what Paul reminds us here. Christ died and we died, He rose and we are risen and His Spirit is in us and He is more powerful that the power of sin. It is possible to live for one hour, two hours, four hours of wakefulness without sinning. We can even live for one day, four days and even more without sinning. This is remarkable. I now now decided to be totally surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to live victoriously over temptation and sin. The defeatist idea about inability to live victoriously above sin may be due to lack of the full understanding of the teaching of Paul when he recorded his struggles with sin. This is particularly when he stated that what he wanted to do, he did not but ended up doing that which he did not like to do. People fail to see his conclusion- he found the answer to his confusion in Christ and the Power of the Holy Spirit which gave him victory over sin.

It is not possible to be a Christian without the Holy Spirit residing in us. When a person receives the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes into him as a gift from God. He (Holy Spirit) is therefore the mark of a Christian and He is the one that helps us to live a successful Christian life.

To set our minds on the things of the spirit means to follow the person of the Holy Spirit, listening to him and obeying as he directs us in our daily living. When we allow him to lead us in all we do, then we are walking with and by him. The Holy spirit will convict us whenever we are focussing on things that relate to our sinful nature. We will then become aware of this and should then quickly repent. We have the choice to obey the sinful nature or the Spirit. Most of the our choices to obey the sinful nature is thus deliberate and to a certain extend as a result of habit. The Holy Spirit can have a powerful role to stop us from deliberate sin if we are willing to let him. We do this by inviting Him to take control of our minds and enpower us to overcome every temptatation.

Obedience to the law cannot save us because our rebelious sinful nature is hostile to God and thus to the law and will therefore not obey the law. Only faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can save us. He bore our sin on the cross by taking the full penalty. His death meant our death to sin. He rose and lives in me thus giving me the power to trumph over sin.

The 'I' in the passage quoted refers to Christians who have have received the Lord and regenerated but still work in the power of the flesh. This is only apparent to me now having gone through the notes of this study.