Getting Verve, and Losing Verve

Couple things that jumped out at me from today’s reading (1 John 5)…

First: We’re calling our church Verve because it means ‘life with vitality, enthusiasm, passion, energy.’ And we could loosely paraphrase verse 12 to be, “He who has the Son has verve; he who does not have the Son of God does not have verve.” And I really believe it. That there should be a qualitative difference in life for people who have Jesus. That it should be noticeable, undeniable, and force others to ask questions.

Second: Man, some books of the Bible end weird. Just totally abruptly. It’s like, “Was the guy called to dinner? Did his pen run out of ink?” 1 John ends not with a final greeting or expression of affection, but with “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. I’m out.” Actually, John didn’t even take the time to write, “I’m out.” And I don’t know why it ends so abruptly, but it’s still a good ending, because if there’s something that’s going to keep a person from verve, it’s idols. It’s having Jesus, but then choosing to put something (career, family, money, popularity, pleasure, whatever) in front of and above Jesus. That, dear children, is the way to lose verve.