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1 John 3:10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
This is now the third time John describes an outstanding quality of the children of God, namely, practicing righteousness. A few days ago I related practicing righteousness to living to love with Jesus. Please let me remind you. When I use the word living, I mean that the person lives or practices what Jesus is and does. In chapter 4, verse 8, John wrote that God is love. Now let’s apply the transitive property of equality. If A=B and A=C, then B=C. If God is righteous (A=B) and God is love (A=C), then righteousness=love (B=C). So I have found it helpful for me to think of living to love with Jesus as the primary quality of the children of God. It’s how they glorify God and show that they belong to Him. Jesus said as much when after giving His disciples the new commandment to love one another as He had loved them. He said the world would know they were His disciples by the way they loved each other (John 13:34-35). Then He promised them He would come be with Him forever to do in them what He commanded them to do (John 14:16; 15:4-5). He has kept His promise by sending the Holy Spirit, the seed of God, the anointing from God into our hearts. The point is that it is the love of Jesus, His righteousness, that makes the children of God obvious in this world.
In this verse, John emphasized what is obvious about the children of God by highlighting that the children of the devil don’t do what they do. The children of God practice righteousness by loving their brothers and sisters. The children of the devil don’t practice either.
So we who are His children have been called by the divine nature dwelling within us to a life of love and righteousness. This is the love of God bestowed upon us, and that love is obvious. It produces love. Take courage today as you live to love with Jesus. His life in you and all who are His is obvious. If someone isn’t practicing righteousness, don’t be deceived by them even if they are in the church. They are children of the devil and not children of God. They need to see and experience the love of Jesus in us that they might be saved and rescued from Satan’s domain of darkness. May the grace of Jesus Christ be with you that His light might shine in the darkness.
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