“The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together. 

This is how we’ve come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.” -1 John‬ ‭3:14-17‬ (msg)

The opposite of life is death. We also find, as we discover our Good and Perfect Father, Life is interconnected to Love, His Love. His Love brings Life. To know the Father’s Love is to Live and there is no other way to get to this Life except through the manifested Love who is Jesus Christ. This leads us into the relation between life/love and death/hate. 

I am reminded of a quote by George MacDonald, “It is but as we draw nigh to Thee, my Lord; we can draw nigh each other and not hurt.” 

Apart from the perfect Love of our Father, what we have to offer others, even those we love, is but a broken imitation of actual Living Love. I know this is hard to hear, but I believe that when we withhold the Love of our Father, when we allow the well of Love to dry up within us because we sever ourselves from the vine of Life, we withhold life. Withholding life brings… death. 

In Matthew 5:21, When Jesus said, “Do not murder. I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder.” He was speaking truth. When we make God’s love disappear as John said, when we are angry with each other – when we stop the flow of Life through us, we kill – we bring death – we murder in a more real sense than a physical death, we withhold Life in an everlasting sense.

No one likes to hear this; it is incredibly sobering. I almost didn’t post on it, but I also believe it can draw us closer to the Lord when we realize that if we truly want Good things for those we share Life with, there is only one source. There is so much evil in this broken world that I want to protect those around me from, and the reality is that I add to this brokenness apart from Him! So, I take comfort in these words from John, “Your fellowship with God enables you to gain a victory over the Evil one.” -1 John 2:14. 

Amen.