"If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has cannot love God whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20).
I thought to my young self, well I'm not always happy with my two older brothers, but I certainly don't hate them. So I'm good, I love God.
While God did want me to love Alan and David, this wasn't John's exact point as he is writing to those believers in Asia Minor. Earlier in his letter, John speaks of a new commandment, although he admits that it is not new but one "that you had from the beginning" (1 John 2:7). He writes, "Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness" (John 2:9). Before this, he described darkness as a place without light, in other words, where God is not. So to be in the dark means not to be in the light.
We live in a village a couple miles off the main road in Nigeria. At night, it is dark... D-A-R-K...DARK! Before Karen and I go to bed every night, I take our dog out of the village road so she can do her thing. If the moon is not out, sometimes you cannot see the hand in front of your face. It can be a very uncomfortable thing. I have found a new appreciation for light! Nala finishes her thing and it's not long before I am back inside my house, in the light.
This idea of being in the dark because of the hate we have for our brother goes back to Jesus's words of expectation for those who would follow him. In a nutshell, he says that the most important thing is to love God with everything we are, and the other thing that is just important is to love other people. Other people, our brothers, our friends, the person at our work, the next-door neighbor, that guy that cuts you off on the road.... love your brother. Jesus died for all of them, they matter to him. Do they matter to you?
If you have any thoughts about this idea of loving your brother, feel free to drop me an e-mail here. And if you have never loved God to the point that you have a personal relationship with His Son Jesus Christ, I would love to chat by email here.
