"But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness...”

-1 John 2:11

Some of the great evidence of Christianity is to love because God first loved you; to forgive because God forgave you; to be merciful because God was merciful to you; to seek the salvation of the lost because while you were a sinner, God was seeking you. An overlying principle in the Epistles of John is to confirm the confidence of the genuine believer and to shake the false assurance of those who are not. John speaks with great clarity that professing Christians who hate fellow Christians are, and always have been, lost in spiritual darkness. It seems apparent that passages that teach if one withholds forgiveness, God will withhold forgiveness; if one withholds mercy, God will withhold mercy have no bearing on them. So as believers, how should we live in relationship to those who know the Lord? In the words of J. C. Ryle, “Our Lord has many weak children in His family, many dull pupils in His school, many raw soldiers in His army, many lame sheep in His flock. Yet, He bears with them all, and casts none away. Happy is the Christian who has learned to do likewise with his brother.” Be encouraged!

Scripture References: 1 John 2:11