4 Those who live sinful lives are disobeying God. Sin is disobedience. 5 You know that Christ appeared in order to take away our sins. He isn't sinful. 6 Those who live in Christ don't go on sinning. Those who go on sinning haven't seen or known Christ. 7 Dear children, don't let anyone deceive you. Whoever does what God approves of has God's approval as Christ has God's approval. 8 The person who lives a sinful life belongs to the devil, because the devil has been committing sin since the beginning. The reason that the Son of God appeared was to destroy what the devil does. 9 Those who have been born from God don't live sinful lives. What God has said lives in them, and they can't live sinful lives. They have been born from God. 10 This is the way God's children are distinguished from the devil's children. Everyone who doesn't do what is right or love other believers isn't God's child.
11 The message that you have heard from the beginning is to love each other. 12 Don't be like Cain. He was a child of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did Cain murder his brother? Because the things Cain did were evil and the things his brother did had God's approval.
13 Brothers and sisters, don't be surprised if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love other believers. The person who doesn't grow in love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates another believer is a murderer, and you know that a murderer doesn't have eternal life. 16 We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers. 17 Now, suppose a person has enough to live on and notices another believer in need. How can God's love be in that person if he doesn't bother to help the other believer? 18 Dear children, we must show love through actions that are sincere, not through empty words. 19 This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and how we will be reassured in his presence. 20 Whenever our conscience condemns us, we will be reassured that God is greater than our conscience and knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our conscience doesn't condemn us, we can boldly look to God 22 and receive from him anything we ask. We receive it because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
23 This is his commandment: to believe in his Son, the one named Jesus Christ, and to love each other as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey Christ's commandments live in God, and God lives in them. We know that he lives in us because he has given us the Spirit.
3 comments:
Chapter 3 makes me search my soul. Many of these verses touch challenges that I am dealing with right now in my life.
The one that I will address is the verses 18-23.
Conscience - God is greater than our conscience. I am thinking that it means our conscience is not the Spirit, but is a guide to right and wrong and the Spirit can determine if our conscience is deceiving us. Verse 23 sums up how we can tell if we are right or wrong in whatever culture we are raised.
Below are some definitions and then the name of a work of art called Conscience. I could not copy and paste the art work, but it is worth viewing and thinking about what the artist was trying to convey.
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Conscience is a hypothesised ability or faculty that distinguishes whether our actions are right or wrong. In plain English, it is a person's inner sense of what is right or what is wrong morally. It leads to feelings of remorse when we do things that go against our moral values, and to feelings of rectitude or integrity when our actions conform to our moral values. It is also the attitude which informs our moral judgment before performing any action. The extent to which such moral judgements are based in reason has been a matter of controversy almost throughout the history of Western philosophy.
Commonly used metaphors refer to the "voice of conscience" or "voice within."
Moral values are things held to be right or wrong or desirable or undesirable. While morality is sometimes described as 'innate' in humans, the scientific view is that a capacity for morality is genetically determined in us, but the set of moral values is acquired, through example, teaching, and imprinting from parents and society. Different cultures have very different moral value systems. Moral values, along with traditions, laws, behaviour patterns, and beliefs, are the defining features of a culture.
Artwork ---François Chifflart (1825-1901), La Conscience (after Victor Hugo
This passage is also interesting because it uses the term "other believers" instead of "brothers" which is commonly used in other translations. We see that we have a special relationship and responsibility to our brothers or other believers.
For example, in Cor 8:13 it talks about us doing things that may be OK or right for us but causes someone else to stumble. Rom 14:10 gets us to think about why do we judge our brother.
I think sometimes we qualify other believers as only those that go to the same church, and we judge others who profess belief in Jesus as . . .
Does all of this mean that we do not have a responsibility to help nonbelievers?
I believe that we are to be good to others who are not Christians, but we are not to be friends with them. There is some scripture that states that friendship with the world is considered enmity to God.
However,I know that Acts 2:38 says that we should go into the world and tell others about Christ.
When the man was in the ditch and sick or when the man asked for the cloak and said that we should give our coat too or when someone strikes you on one cheek give the other cheek, it doesn't ask if they believe in Christ.
There is ,also, that instance when the people went out to meet the bridegroom and they had trimmed their lamps with oil. When the others wanted more because they had not prepared, the ones with the oil did not share because they said if they gave then they might run out of oil before the bridegroom came.
I do know that we are to be good to fellow Christians first.
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