November 1, 2013 
1 John 5:1-6 The Voice
It’s easy to say “I love God,” but genuine love reflects God’s love. If we belong to God, then we will love each other regardless of how hard love is.
Everyone who trusts Jesus as the long-awaited Anointed One is a child of God, and everyone who loves the Father cannot help but love the child fathered by Him. Then how do we know if we truly love God’s children? We love them if we love God and keep His commands. You see, to love God means that we keep His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down. Everything that has been fathered by God overcomes the corrupt world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
Who is the person conquering the world? It is the one who truly trusts that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus the Anointed is the One who came by water and blood—not by the water only, but by the water and the blood.
Just as we do not get to choose our biological brothers and sisters, we do not get to choose our spiritual brothers and sisters either. But what comes along with loving the Father is loving all His other children—even the really annoying ones! While it might seem to be easier to go off and live in isolation rather than put up with those we are not naturally attracted to, there are responsibilities that come with living in a spiritual family. We reflect our worship of God by living in respect with our Christian brothers and sisters. How we treat the people around us on a daily basis is the real test of our love for God.
iChristian 
Hmmm yeah sometimes we really need to hear this lol! William and I have gotten to a point to where we go to church and leave without talking to anyone. So many bad experiences with people in churches it’s so hard to start relationships up again. But this is good 🙂 thanks!
Awww Amanda, so sorry to hear that you are having difficulties with relationships at church. i’ll pray for that situation! Churches can be so isolating sometimes and often hinder our journey rather than help build us up.
Well i’m blessed to have you as a loving sister in the church body of Christ! 🙂
Thanks so much! Yeah, we just started going to this new church and so far everyone seems nice so I’m hoping after a while to get to know some people better 🙂
Excellent, sounds promising! 🙂
I feel this is speaking to me right where it hurts. And I thank you for this jab to my conscience. Ah, so many things to correct.
Hope you feeling a little better Ellen?! I’m still praying for you, thanks for continuing to read iChristian. So blessed to have such a loving sister! Take care 🙂
Still kicking. Very touched by your prayers and also by your posts. I feel blessed to have YOU in my life and even if I don’t read every post, I read some and I always pray for you and Sarah and will. Take care, you, too. 🙂 ellen
Awww too kind! It’s having loving sisters like yourself that this post really jumped out at me, i just had to share!
God bless you Ellen! 🙂
Hello Steve, Powerful writing and so true! A wonderful reminder. Thank you for liking my post and following. I look forward to reading more from you as well. Peace and Blessings
Absolutely! You get to the heart of discipleship here, Steve. Thank you.
Amen! Thanks Nigel for commenting and stopping by to encourage me! God bless
Thanks for reminding me…this subject seems to be something I need to really work on. I keep seeing the message in many different places!
It’s so easy to just surround ourselves with those that are happy, positive, and faith filled. However, the ones that are not so easy, are the very ones who need the love of Jesus the most.
Have a blessed day…Bernadette
Amen! Thanks Bernadette for blessing me with your comment. It’s really hard sometimes to love the ones who hurt you or drain you, but that’s where the spirit works through us and builds our character. Still much easier like you said to surround ourselves with “nice” people. But we need to be “Others centred” and not “Self Centred”.
Hope you have a blessed weekend?! Great to see you here, God bless. 🙂
Wonderful post.. this is just what I needed.. blessings to you
Thanks so much! I’m so blessed to have a spirit family on here with loving sister’s like yourself to teach, encourage and guide me. God bless you. Hope you have a blessed weekend?! 🙂