Practice Real Love

The way we know we've been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn't love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don't go together. This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Messiah sacrificed His life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves. If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to YHVH's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in YHVH's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For YHVH is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves (or one another), we're bold and free before YHVH! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what He said, doing what pleases Him.

Again, this is YHVH's command: to believe in His personally named Son, Yahshua Ha Messhiach. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep His commands, we live deeply and surely in Him, and He lives in us. And this is how we experience His deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit He gave us.

Paraphrase of 1 John 3:14-24