The Message from the Beginning

1 John 3:11-13 This is the teaching you have heard from the beginning: We must love each other. Don’t be like Cain. He belonged to the Evil One. Cain killed his brother. But why did he kill him? Because what Cain did was evil, and what his brother did was good. Brothers and sisters, don’t be surprised when the people of this world hate you.

Love is such a simple word. And when you think about being loved – by your loved ones, by God – that’s such a beautiful thing. Nothing beats that. So why is it then that we so often mess it up?

Sadly, there are many people in the world today who don’t feel loved at all, who perhaps were once loved, but now rejected. I’ve been there. I know how bleak and brutal that place is. And to anyone who happens to be there at the moment, know this: God’s heart aches for you.

But it’s not just the absence of love that’s at issue here. Hatred is the opposite of love.

1 John 3:11-13 This is the teaching you have heard from the beginning: We must love each other. Don’t be like Cain. He belonged to the Evil One. Cain killed his brother. But why did he kill him? Because what Cain did was evil, and what his brother did was good. Brothers and sisters, don’t be surprised when the people of this world hate you.

But against the backdrop of all that hatred, Augustine once said that since love can grow within you, so beauty can grow too. For love is the beauty of the soul.

Friend, amidst all the hatred, the division, the lovelessness in the lives of so many, you and I can be the ones through whom the beauty of God’s love flows. Sometimes, we’re the only ones. Who is it that God is calling you to love today? Because this is the teaching you’ve heard from the beginning: we must love each other.

That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.