June 22, 2025 – This Is How We Know – 1 John 3:11-24
1 John 3:11-24 emphasizes the importance of loving one another as a defining characteristic of being a child of God. It contrasts loving actions with hatred, highlighting that true love is not just words but also deeds, mirroring the sacrificial love of Jesus. This love is a demonstration of having eternal life and abiding in God, while hatred is associated with the spirit of murder and the “evil one”.
Here’s a breakdown of the key themes:
Command to Love:
John states that believers are commanded to love one another, a message that has been present since the beginning of the Christian faith.
Love as Evidence of New Life:
Loving one another is not just an option but a sign that one has been transferred from death to life, from being a child of the devil to a child of God.
Contrast with Cain:
John uses the example of Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother, to illustrate what love is not.
Love in Action:
True love isn’t just a feeling or expression, but involves actively laying down one’s life for others, similar to how Christ laid down his life for believers.
Confidence Before God:
Obeying God’s command to love, alongside believing in Jesus, brings confidence before God.
Abiding in God:
Those who obey God’s commands, including loving one another, abide in Him and experience His presence.
1 John 3:11-24
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Love One Another
11 For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We must not be like Cain, who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. 13 Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brothers and sisters. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. 16 We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. 17 How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
18 Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. 19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God, 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.
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