“First John 2:7-11”

Thursday, October 12, 2017

“Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

--- End of Scripture verses---

Even when Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another” (John 13:34), love was not, strictly speaking, a new commandment. God commanded His children to “love your neighbor as yourself” from old days long since passed (Leviticus 19:18). But Jesus took the old commandment and gave it new meaning when He told us to not merely love our brethren as we love ourselves, but to love them “even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Jesus loved us unconditionally, from the deepest depths of the love of God, and sacrificially, to the greatest lengths of laying down His own life for ours.

When we endeavor to love our brothers and sisters in Christ as He loves us, we “walk in the same manner as He walked” (verse 6), and we demonstrate that “the true Light is already shining” in our hearts (verse 8). When people’s hearts are permeated by the light of God’s truth and undying, sacrificial love, it transforms them into new creations with a greater capacity to love. The light “which is true in Him” is also true in us who walk in light, and reflect the light of the One whose glory exceeds that of all others (Matthew 5:14-16). The more we devote ourselves to the light of God’s word, and to loving Him and the souls created in His image, the more the darkness of this world passes away from us.

Anyone who thinks or says that he is living in the light of the Lord, “and yet hates his brother,” he is lying and walking in the darkness of sin and separation from God. God is light (1 John 1:5) and God is love (1 John 4:8). A heart filled with hatred is completely inconsistent and incompatible with the intrinsic nature of the God of glory, and will preclude any form of communion with Him. It is obvious that the proponents of Gnosticism hated the light of the Truth, and therefore they despised the good brethren who professed it and took a firm stance for it. To be filled with hate is to be filled with the kind of spiritual darkness that pervades and perverts a person’s entire consciousness, and produces “stumbling,” spiritual blindness. “The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know over what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:19).

But, “the one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him” (verse 10). “The love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14), and directs us, and provides an unobstructed, illuminated pathway free from unnecessary obstacles and entanglements. Satan places enough snares and impediments in our path without us darkening our own hearts and dimming our own vision with hatred. Let’s learn to love God with all our being, and love each other from a pure hear fervently (1 Peter 1:22)!

Please read 1 John 2:12-14 for tomorrow.

Have a wonderful day!

-Louie Taylor

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