Eternal Life is Now

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

1 John 3:11-15 (NIV)

Vince Lombardi, the legendary coach of the Green Bay Packers, once started off a new season of football by placing a football in front of the team and pronounced, "Gentlemen, this is a football." He, of course, was not insinuating that his players didn't know what a football was, he was making a point that they needed to get back to the fundamentals of playing football. 

The Apostle John takes us back to the beginning, the foundation of our beliefs: Love one another. He contrast love with murder and takes us back to the book of Genesis where Cain, because of his own evil actions, killed his brother whom God was pleased with. It is a pretty stark contrast between love and murder. If you don't have love, your hatred has a logical end: murder. That is not to say that everyone who hates murders, it does mean that hates end is murder. 

Love passes us from death to life. Notice that verse 15 says that "has eternal life in him". It does not say that eternal life is in the future, it states that it is something in us now. When we pass from death to life because we love one another that is eternal life. Sometimes we miss things because we simply don't know what we are looking for. When I love others life opens up. Tomorrow we are going to talk more about this (God willing) but I just want to start us thinking about how love frees while hate restricts. 

God loves us. We loves as he has loved us. That shared loves opens us to eternal life in our lives in the here and now. Enjoy.

Father, help us to love one another and enjoy the eternal life your love gives us. Praise be to you in us today!