I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
– 3 John 4
I love this verse. I have no greater joy, John says. Than when I hear this. When I hear that my children… And we know he’s talking about spiritual children here. Although there’s clearly application to physical children as well. But to hear that my children, people who I’ve had the opportunity to lead to Jesus, people who I am particularly caring for or entrusted with the responsibility to shepherd, when I hear that they are walking in the truth, that’s what we want more than anything else.
3 John 4 teaches us about the pleasure in seeing others walking in truth.
I think about my life as a dad more than anything else. I want my kids to walk in the truth, not to walk in the lies of the adversary, in the lies of this world. That they would walk in the truth of God’s Word and the truth of God’s love for them and the truth of what it means to experience eternal life in him.
That they would walk in that truth and not just for my physical children. I want this for well, every person around me. I want this for the people that I have the privilege of pastoring. They would walk in the truth that they would be guarded from the lies of the adversary and the lies of this world that they would walk and live in the freedom that God’s truth provides and the knowledge of God and his love for them.
I want this for people I’ve interacted with throughout my life and around the world who I’ve had an opportunity to encourage with the truth of Jesus, to hear that they’re walking in it. Yes, that brings such joy and I just want to encourage us today to live for this, to live, to help people walk in the truth, to be an instrument in God’s hands today, to combat the lies of the adversary, not just in our own lives, yes, that but in others’ lives to combat the lies of this world and others’ lives to just speak truth into others’ lives all day long today.
3 John 4 teaches us the fulfillment in guiding others to God’s truth.
Look for opportunities. Yes, if you’re a parent with your children, but not just with your children, with your spouse, if you’re a child, if you’re a student with others, there’s so many lies that the adversary is selling to kids, to teenagers today. Don’t buy into those lies in your life and be a source of truth in others’ lives so that they might walk in the truth and as they do so that you might experience joy.
God, we pray 3 John 4, over, all the people around us, we pray it specifically over children, spiritual, physical, children, we may have, God, we pray that they would walk in the truth. We intercede right now for spiritual, physical children in our lives and not just them. Lord, for our parents and the faith or our physical parents. God, we pray that they would walk in the truth.
Prayer for the Bulgarian Jewish People
Pray for our friends. We pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ that they would walk in the truth today. God, we pray for fellow church members. They would walk in the truth today and we pray that you would use our lives today to help them walk in the truth, our intercession for them now and our encouragement to them at different points of the day. How us to live today to help others walk in the truth and to lead others to the truth. God, we pray that you would help us to share the gospel boldly, compassionately today so that other people might know the truth of Jesus and walk, and that they might become in a sense spiritual children like John’s talking about here.
Lord, we pray specifically for the Bulgarian Jewish people of Bulgaria, this Jewish diaspora in Bulgaria, a few of whom are followers of Jesus. God, we pray you would help those followers of Jesus to walk in the truth and to spread the gospel among the Jewish people of Bulgaria, and we pray that the result would be more and more sons and daughters of yours walking in the truth. We pray all this according to your word in 3 John 4, in Jesus’ name.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
