Love One another

1 John 3:11-4:21

OK you guessed it, I love this! John starts out this letter saying that we have heard this from the beginning-and then he goes right back there to say, we should not be like Cain who hated his brother-and killed his brother. He links this for us by saying that we should not be surprised that the world hates us, and yet we should not hate back. Because this hate is not of God, and if we are living in the Spirit of God we will abide in love. He says this for us a few times in case it didn't quite stick. And he is correct when he brings us back to Genesis, because we saw the love that God poured out again and again on his people and his creation, and that when we strayed from that love we got ourselves a whole passel of trouble.

Living outside the Spirit of God does not bring peace, and love and joy. And living in the Spirit we know is to live in love, as if love were a place we could reside, because love abides, it continues, it is. It is of God and is God; what wouldn't we wish to do that could keep us living in this relationship? It brings us all the way to the first commandment to love God with all our heart and with all our strength and with all our mind-and Jesus said the rest of the laws are for teaching us how to live in love with our neighbors. No wonder it is all about love.

If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

John makes an additional point about our call to give honor to Jesus as Son of God and Savior of the World.This too makes sense to me in this context especially, because God himself said "this is my son, my beloved, listen to him." and If Jesus is the beloved of God, and we wish to live in God's love-and bring God joy, we need to do those things that he has shown us to be good-for us and for our salvation. By this we can live in this love-we can abide in it.
See you tomorrow.
-maggie