Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this new day. He blessed us with a wonderful Wednesday Evening gathering for fellowship and study. It was an evening of in-depth study and sharing. We were reminded that our Christian walk is not a solitary walk; it’s a personal relationship with Jesus Christ lived out in community, lived out through Jesus Christ’s Church.
While studying from John 3, I was also looking at 1 John 3. We are reminded of a story from the book of Genesis, the story of Cain and Abel. Cain belonged to the devil. That’s why he murdered his brother Abel. We remember the story of how the two brothers each brought offerings to God: As a farmer, Cain brought some of his crops and as a rancher Abel brought an animal from his flock. Genesis says that God looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but that with Cain and his offering the Lord was not pleased...and that infuriated Cain. After this God warned Cain that his anger at God was eating away at him, that his anger was opening the door for sin to pounce on him, but Cain refused to listen. As his anger festered into resentment, Cain took his brother out in the field and murdered him...brother against brother . . . the very first homicide in the Bible, the first murder in human history. Cain’s murder of Abel is a story of anger fueled by religion. Because Cain failed in the realm of spirituality he lashed out in hatred against his brother. It was Cain’s religious experience that led him to seek to destroy his brother.
The Word of the Lord in 1 John 3, equates Cain with the world, and reminds us that followers of Jesus should not be surprised when the world hates them even as Cain hated his brother Abel. Followers of Jesus Christ no longer dwell in that same realm; they have passed out of spiritual death and entered into spiritual life through faith in Jesus Christ, and the evidence of this change is how we love each other.
Our capacity to love each other reveals the fact that we have truly come out of the spiritual darkness and hatred of the world, the hatred of Cain, and that we have truly come to faith in Jesus Christ, the life evidenced by Abel, a life of obedience and love. The Bible reminds that hatred is simply murder in its embryonic form. John remembered hearing Jesus say in the sermon on the mount that murder starts with hatred that’s nurtured and fed instead of eliminated through love and forgiveness. The same hatred that leads murderers to butcher people resides in every human heart -- in mine and in yours -- making each of us potential murderers. That is the Bible’s diagnosis of us. Our demonstration of loving each other demonstrates our faith. When we develop loving relationships with other Christians we demonstrate to our world that we are different.
Cain and Abel represent two fundamentally different journeys in life. Cain represents the realm of spiritual death, of a veneer of religion covering a heart filled with hatred. This realm of spiritual death is the realm of Satan himself, because Satan has been a murderer from the beginning. It is characterized by a lack of love and a refusal to love to others. Cain represents a world system that doesn’t know Jesus Christ, a culture that refuses to come to faith in him and be transformed. We live in a world of hatred and violence, where relatives refuse to speak to each other for decades, where parents abuse their children, where children tote assault rifles. We live in a world of terrorism.
The Word of the Lord in 1 John 3, equates Cain with the world, and reminds us that followers of Jesus should not be surprised when the world hates them even as Cain hated his brother Abel. Followers of Jesus Christ no longer dwell in that same realm; they have passed out of spiritual death and entered into spiritual life through faith in Jesus Christ, and the evidence of this change is how we love each other.
Our capacity to love each other reveals the fact that we have truly come out of the spiritual darkness and hatred of the world, the hatred of Cain, and that we have truly come to faith in Jesus Christ, the life evidenced by Abel, a life of obedience and love. The Bible reminds that hatred is simply murder in its embryonic form. John remembered hearing Jesus say in the sermon on the mount that murder starts with hatred that’s nurtured and fed instead of eliminated through love and forgiveness. The same hatred that leads murderers to butcher people resides in every human heart -- in mine and in yours -- making each of us potential murderers. That is the Bible’s diagnosis of us. Our demonstration of loving each other demonstrates our faith. When we develop loving relationships with other Christians we demonstrate to our world that we are different.
Cain and Abel represent two fundamentally different journeys in life. Cain represents the realm of spiritual death, of a veneer of religion covering a heart filled with hatred. This realm of spiritual death is the realm of Satan himself, because Satan has been a murderer from the beginning. It is characterized by a lack of love and a refusal to love to others. Cain represents a world system that doesn’t know Jesus Christ, a culture that refuses to come to faith in him and be transformed. We live in a world of hatred and violence, where relatives refuse to speak to each other for decades, where parents abuse their children, where children tote assault rifles. We live in a world of terrorism.
The spiritual journey of following Jesus Christ calls us to be different, to not give in to the spirit of Cain, even when we become outraged by something. Our calling is to love, to give forgiveness when it’s not deserved, to show gentleness when we’re verbally attacked, to show grace when we want to blow our tops.
In Christ,
Brown
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