Some Key Words

Observe (tereo[5083]):

to keep or watch, to observe as commands; to attend to carefully; hold fast

Commandments (entole[1785]):

a prescribed rule in accordance with which a thing is done

Burdensome (barus[926]):

heavy in weight, severe, stern, violent, cruel, unsparing; grave.

Overcomes (nikao[3528]):

to subdue, conquer, prevail, gain victory.

Faith (pistis[4102]):

to persuade, being persuaded, belief, implies knowledge of and assent to and confidence in certain divine truths; conviction of the truth of anything, especially regarding the relationship of man and God, accompanied by trust and holy fervor, the conviction that God exists, is creator and ruler of all things, and provided salvation in Christ, conviction that Christ is the Messiah, and the source of our salvation; moral conviction, constancy in such profession.

Believes (pisteuo[4100]):

to believe, have mental persuasion; to think to be true, to credit, place confidence in, the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of soul, to trust Jesus or God as able to aid, saving faith; to have faith, to entrust (especially one's spiritual well-being to Christ.)

Son (huios[5207]):

Son - reserved for the Son of God(?) signifies the relation of offspring to parent, not just simple birth, in 'Son of God', this indicates the manifestation of Jesus' relationship with the Father in His expressing of the Father's character - a son not just in genealogy, but in deed; used to describe Adam, those who are born again, angels, and Jesus, those whose character God - as a loving father - shapes by chastisements, those who revere God as their father, who resemble God in character and life, governed by the Spirit of God, having calm and joyful trust in God as parent, obedient to the Father's will

God (theos[2316]):

the Godhead, the Trinity, God the Father, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the only and true God; the supreme Divinity

 

Paraphrase

2 We are confirmed in God by our obedience to His commands, 3 and by the fact that they are a joy to us, rather than a challenge. 4 This can be so because God has already been victorious over the ways of this world in us, 5 and we who believe in the Son of God partake of that victorious power.

Key Verse

5:3 - I like that this points out that love not only obeys God's commandments, but rather enjoys doing so.

Some Parallel Verses

5:2
5:3

Jn 14:15 - those who love Him will keep His commandments. 2Jn 6 - love is to do according to His commandments. Mt 11:30 - which commandments are easy and light(!) Mt 23:4 - unlike the burdens religion may try to place on us.

5:4

Jn 1:13 - the believer is born of God. Jn 3:3 - without which birth we cannot enter God's kingdom.

5:5

New Thoughts

True faith must have true love as its basis. True love will find obedience a thing easy and desirable. The desirable part, I see. The easy part - that's another thing. I look at the simple commandments brought out in this book - to love like God loves. That's a hard thing. Desirable, yes, but hard. Yet it's true, Christ did say his burden was light, and His yoke easy. How is this? Only by the power of God, for whom, by whom, and with whom all things are possible! God, I long for the day when this challenge seems easy! I hunger to excel in love, that I may have confidence - unshakable confidence - in knowing Your presence in me. All else is spirit - and requires testing. The test, I see, is hard, and much that seems 'of the Spirit' falls short in the testing. I pray You would mold me, change me, make me after Your image that I not fall short in the testing; that I no longer look at this as an impossible request, but the simple and reasonable rule of life You call it to be.