Love One Another

DEVOTION 1 JOHN LOVE ONE ANOTHER 1 John 3:21-24 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. NIV Why would our hearts condemn us? Surely it would because we know the truth and do not live by it. But because we know the truth and have accepted that truth and obeyed his commands and have done what pleases him, which is of course accepting his provision for our salvation. We have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we have believed in the name of Jesus Christ, but the only catch is thing loving one another as he commanded us to. Maybe that might cause our hearts to condemn us, and maybe that is why we do not have the confidence before God to receive anything we ask for. Maybe we know deep down there are fellow believers we really do not love as God desires us to. If this is so, if we know what God desires and we know we should love that certain one or ones who we just are having such a problem loving, is that rebellion against God? Shouldn’t we just give in, get over ourselves and simply love them? Maybe we even need to go and ask them to forgive us for having hard feeling toward them. Maybe we need that kind of healing in our relationship with them. Sure there are people who have personalities that simply rub us the wrong way, but isn’t that because we are too concerned about us rather than pleasing God by loving them anyway? Because we know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior he has sent us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to guide us, to lead us into all truths. Does not the Spirit reveal to our hearts the truth about loving each other? Could this refusal to love every single other believer be a reason some of us live a crippled life, not receiving what we ask for? What if we talk about them behind their backs, even in private with one of our most trusted believing friends, is that loving them? It appears there is but only one way to respond to the truth of God, we must Love one another.