1 John 3 - Introduction

ANALYSIS.

God shows a great love to you in bestowing upon you the great honor of being called his children. You are the sons of God, and yet there are greater blessings for you in store. You shall be like him, and see him just as he is. This is a great hope and a strong reason for striving to be pure. A violation of law is sin. Christ came to take away sin; those who abide in him! do not sin. One who sins does not know Christ. To be righteous, you must act right. One who sins does so at the dictates of the devil, who sinned from the first. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil. One born of God does not commit sin habitually, and so long as God's will and desire are present with him, he will not sin. You can tell the children of God from the children of the devil in this; he that sins habitually and loves not his brother is not a child of God. From the beginning of the gospel of Christ, this is the message: "Love one another." Cain did not love his brother, for he slew him, because his brother's deeds were right in God's sight, and he thus condemned the works of Cain as evil. I give you a criterion by which you may know whether you have passed from death unto life, if you love the brethren. In this we see God's love. Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Such a love as this can not exist in one who refuses to administer to the needs of his brother. We must not love in profession only, but in fact, showing it by acts. Otherwise our hearts will condemn us, and God is greater than our hearts. But if we obey his commandments, believing on the Son of God, and loving the brethren, we know assuredly that God abides with and in us, and we with him, by this his Spirit which he hath given us.