1 John 3:10-24 - Abiding Love

1 John 3:10-24

The Imperative of Love (Matthew 22:39)

10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, 12 not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.

13 Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. 15 Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

The Outworking of Love

16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 17 But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

18 My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. 19 And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. 20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. 22 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. 23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error

24 Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

Here love is defined by abiding in Christ.  Abiding in Christ means we are living according to His word in seeking righteous and holy obedience with a thankful and willing heart.  Those who do not pursue living this way are still doing the work of the devil, the false accuser and slanderer, and are not the children of God.  The word goes further to define and identify those who are not God’s people by the lack of practicing righteousness in character and love in action to others.  God’s word all along has this definition as a command to love Him above all by loving others as ourselves (Luke 10:27) and not to seek the passing pleasures (Hebrews 11:25) of self-serving sin.  This is abiding love, remaining in Christ and His love to shine that love light to others as He does.  The first example in human history of failure to love is given in the example of Cain who murdered his own brother because he despised Abel’s righteous gift offered to God (Genesis 4:4-5, 8) while his own was evil and self-seeking (Romans 2:8, James 3:16) in intent.  He did this as Genesis 4:6-7 tells us after being warned to do good and be aware of sin’s desire to overtake us in anger and not in love and acceptance.  A lack of love therefore is seen in Cain’s response that he is not his brother’s keeper to watch over and protect him, and that spoken to God just after his lack of love morphed into murderous hatred.  We are to love by looking out for one another and not only our own interests (Philippians 2:4) to abide in Christ and demonstrate His love.  Such agape love is a result of our passing from death to life (John 5:24) in our regenerative rebirth and not a method of earning our salvation.  Love for God and our fellow man is the proof of the changed heart with His law written by the finger of the Spirit on our hearts.  Hating others makes us murderers (Matthew 5:21-22) as Cain was.  In contrast to him, we see the example of Jesus Christ who sacrificed Himself for our good.  He did this not only to pay the price for our sin and bring us into eternal relation with Him, but also as our example to lay down our own lives for one another in contrast to Cain.  This extends from our conduct and conversation to the meeting of the needs we see in our brothers and sisters when we are able to help them as we contemplate how the Lord meets all our needs and more.  We are to love in our actions of truthful care and not to check a box of compliance to be seen in good standing with our Lord.  Truth observed in us is this sincere unfeigned love for God and man.  If we do these things and still doubt our motives are entirely pure, we can rest in faith by knowing He understands our hearts and their motives (Hebrews 4:12) in alignment with the Bible.  If we have no feelings of condemnation, however, we can build our confidence in His work of sanctifying grace in us to conform us to the image of the Son of God and rejoice in that work of God in us.  If then we do these things from a sincere and unforced heart to please the Lord, we have the assurance to receive what we truly need in our lives through our sincere prayers of faith.  We obey the commandment to love one another as we believe on the name of the Son of God and abide in His love and grace.  Keeping His word in this way is our assurance of proof that we are in Christ and He in us as His Spirit given to love in us proves His presence and work because we are in Christ and His love.  This is abiding love as we abide in Him and His love.