The Battle Between Love and Sin... (1 John 3)

God always tries to get us to look through the lens in which He looks.  I truly believe that if we did this constantly our view of everything would drastically change. God focuses in this chapter about loving our brothers and hating sin enough to stop allowing it in our lives.  When we look at love through God's lens it is truly remarkable.  God willingly gave His best, His only beloved Son, Jesus to die on our behalf.  He did this while we were still sinners and ENEMIES of God.  Would you or I lay down our lives for our enemies?  No, but in view of God's mercy He wants us to have that same heart.John reminds us that this is the same message we have heard from the beginning that we are to love our brothers.  God promises us through Johns letter that if we abide (obey, observe, follow, keep to, hold to, conform to, adhere to, stick to, stand by, act in accordance with, uphold, heed, accept, go along with, acknowledge, respect, defer to) that we will have love and not death in our hearts. When we abide in Him, He promises us that He will abide in us. John challenges us also on our sin. John challenges us to practice righteousness and not sin.  The enemy has tricked us that we are not free and that we are still slaves to sin.  DO NOT WILLINGLY HAND OVER OUR FREEDOM TO SATAN.  We have the power to choose righteousness over sin.  We have a choice constantly in our day to day lives.  John wants to remind us that sin should not be okay within us.  We should never be at a place where we feel that we are okay now... C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity says that, "God's goal is to guide towards absolute perfection."  God will not stop convicting us of sin in our lives until we are perfect. God doesn't want to merely weaken our sinful, fleshly desires He wants to completely kill it. Jesus is trying to not only save us but kill us as well. So today as we go through out our day let us be reminded of God's ultimate sacrificial love for us and let us be reminded of our freedom and power to choose righteousness over sin.  Choose love and righteousness today.

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