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In the beautiful mountain range that is the Bible, for John I feel this is a moment at which we hit a peak and should take a moment to view the scenery. Let’s dive straight in.

‘For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.’ (1 John 3:11-24)

Do you hate or love?

Well, he starts off simple enough, doesn’t he? Bad people hate, good people love. Bad people murder, good people bless. That’s fine until we start to dig a bit deeper into our hearts. Jesus made the same statement as John does here in saying that hatred is the same as murder, and we should be very careful to write something like this off. The account of Cain and Abel is a warning to us that just being brothers and sisters in Christ doesn’t make it all nice, because hatred can even happen within families.

So let me just stick the knife in where it might hurt – and don’t worry, my heart’s on the line here too. Take your church’s contact list (or whatever equivalent you might have) and just go down the list, actively thinking of the first thing that strikes you about each person. More than likely if it’s a good thing for everyone then you’re lying, naïve, not human, or dead. The simple fact of the matter is that we should love one another more. Let’s do it. Come round my house for a cup of tea.

Faith and works

John’s conclusion from this is interesting, and not where I’d expect him to go. We’ve seen that John’s really keen on the idea of fellowship, true community, but he then comes out with this line ‘let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth’. There are suspicious hints of James’s book in the New Testament when he says that ‘faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead’ (James 2:17). So the Christian life is not one which can be lived alone!

You see, I like the doctrine behind ‘once saved, always saved’. It’s simple truth, God doesn’t change his mind. But the thing is that Satan leaps on this and uses it as a crowbar to insert sin into our lives by isolating us! He says, ‘you’re saved already so why do you need these losers?’ and we go, ‘yeah, they are losers, aren’t they?!’ True Christianity is only ever expressed in community – that’s not a concept which we talk about, but a way of life we enter into. Join a local church. Serve in that church. Get in and out of other believers’ homes. Pray together, sing together, study the Bible together, submit to godly leadership together, serve the community and the poor together.

So how do we know?

There’s a bit of a problem here, though, because what about those who are genuinely Christians but haven’t been aware of this responsibility? How about genuine Christians who haven’t been able to do it? The answer is simple yet not easy. All Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit, who changes our desires – he renews our mind. This means that our deepest desire as Christians should be to be Christians! In other words, if the idea of not being a Christian makes you feel uneasy, that probably means that you are one because the Holy Spirit has given you that desire. A ‘false’ Christian who was told they might not be a Christian would probably not be that bothered.

So…are you bothered? Love one another.

"Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life" from Tom Kelley

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