Guidance from a Mature Believer: Love as a Family Should
Guidance From a Mature Believer · 1 John 3:11–24
Love as a Family Should
Why the way we love one another is the clearest proof that we belong to God
“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
— John 13:34–35 (CSB)
Every family has its own kind of table. Maybe yours is a long one with mismatched chairs, crowded with casseroles and cousins on a holiday afternoon. Maybe it is a small kitchen table where the coffee goes cold while somebody talks through a hard week. Either way, you know the warmth of sitting with people who are yours.
You probably also know the ache of an empty chair. The relative nobody calls anymore. The brother who stopped coming after that one argument years ago. The aunt everyone tiptoes around. Families are where love gets tested, and if we are honest, it does not always pass.
The apostle John knew that the family of God faces the very same test. And he had something to say about it.
Pulling Up a Chair With John
In our series, Guidance From a Mature Believer, we have been sitting at the feet of an old pastor who walked with Jesus, leaned against Him at the Last Supper, and watched Him die and rise again. By the time John wrote this letter, he had spent a lifetime thinking about what it means to follow Christ. In 1 John 3:11–24, he circles back to the command he heard from the Lord’s own lips on the night before the cross: love one another.
Jesus said the world would recognize His disciples by that love. Our buildings, programs, and opinions will never speak as loudly as the way we treat each other. So let’s pull up a chair and listen to what John has to teach us about loving the way a family should.
When the World Pushes Back
For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another, unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
— 1 John 3:11–13 (CSB)
John reaches all the way back to the first family to make his point. Cain and Abel were brothers, raised under the same roof, and yet Cain killed Abel. Why? Because Abel’s righteous life held up a mirror to Cain’s heart, and Cain hated what he saw.
When you set your heart on living for God, you may find that some people grow uncomfortable around you. You do not have to preach a word. Your choices alone can make others painfully aware of the way they are living, and sometimes that awareness turns into resentment. John tells us plainly not to be surprised when it happens.
When it happens, take heart. Often the light is simply doing what light does. Our calling is to keep loving anyway, the same way Jesus kept loving the very people who rejected Him.
“But I Don’t Hate Anybody”
Most of us would say we do not actually hate anyone. Hate feels like a strong word, the kind of thing reserved for villains in movies. But consider how Merriam-Webster defines it: “intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury.”
Look closely at that last phrase. A sense of injury. Hate rarely shows up all at once. It usually grows quietly out of a hurt we never let go of. It looks like the grudge we keep polishing, the cold shoulder we give at church, the name we cannot hear without our jaw tightening, the private satisfaction we feel when someone who wronged us finally stumbles.
John echoes something Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount:
“You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment.”
— Matthew 5:21–22 (CSB)
The one who does not love remains in death. Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
— 1 John 3:14–15 (CSB)
I will admit, those verses stop me in my tracks. Jesus moves murder from the hand to the heart. The anger we nurse in private is cut from the same cloth as the violence we condemn in public. And John adds a sobering truth: a person who has no love is still spiritually dead. Love is the heartbeat that tells us new life has truly begun.
What Real Love Looks Like
If hate can hide behind polite smiles, then we need a clear picture of what real love is. Paul gave us one in his letter to the Corinthians. He said that without love, even the most impressive gifts and sacrifices amount to nothing. Then he described love this way:
Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
— 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (CSB)
Read that list slowly and you will notice something. Nearly every line describes what love does or refuses to do. And John tells us exactly where we learned it:
This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
— 1 John 3:16 (CSB)
We know real love because Christ gave up His life for us. The cross is our definition. Every time we wonder what love requires, we can look at Jesus and find the answer.
Love With Its Sleeves Rolled Up
If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
— 1 John 3:17–18 (CSB)
Real love is an action. Feelings rise and fall with the weather, with our sleep, with whatever happened at work today. Love shows up anyway. It produces selfless, sacrificial giving, and it serves without keeping score or waiting for a thank-you.
Jesus taught the same principle to His disciples:
No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.
— John 15:13 (CSB)
The greatest act of love is giving oneself for others. Very few of us will ever be asked to die for someone. But all of us are asked, every single day, to lay down pieces of our lives: our time, our comfort, our preferences, our right to be right. Here is what that can look like around us:
Sitting with a grieving friend long after the casseroles stop coming.
Driving an elderly neighbor to appointments, even when it eats up your Saturday.
Quietly covering a need in your church family without telling anyone.
Picking up the phone to call the person who left the church hurt.
Forgiving the one who never apologized, and choosing kindness the next time you see them.
None of these will make the news. All of them look like Jesus.
When Your Own Heart Points a Finger
Maybe as you have been reading, a quiet voice inside has started listing all the ways you have fallen short. The people you have not loved well. The help you did not offer. John knew that voice too, and he wrote these tender words for moments like this:
This is how we will know that we belong to the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows all things.
— 1 John 3:19–20 (CSB)
God knows our motives as well as our actions. He sees the stumbling attempts, the sincere desire beneath the clumsy follow-through. And His voice of reassurance is stronger than the accusing voice of our conscience. Our hearts can be harsh judges, but they do not get the final word.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
— Romans 8:1 (CSB)
The writer of Hebrews tells us that the blood of Christ cleanses our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God, and that Jesus stands as the mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 9:14–15). If you are in Christ, He will not condemn you. So let conviction lead you to change, and then let grace lead you to rest.
Asking With Confidence
Dear friends, if our hearts don’t condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive whatever we ask from him because we keep his commands and do what is pleasing in his sight.
— 1 John 3:21–22 (CSB)
Here John reaffirms the promise Jesus gave His followers: ask, and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7). Whatever you ask in prayer believing, you will receive (Matthew 21:22). If you remain in Him and His words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done (John 15:7). Even the man born blind understood that God listens to the one who honors Him and does His will (John 9:31).
Some people treat prayer like a vending machine: insert obedience, receive blessing. John has something far more beautiful in mind. When we obey and do what pleases the Lord, we draw close enough to Him that our wants begin to take the shape of His. We start asking for the very things He already longs to give. That is when our prayers line up with His will, and that is where confidence grows.
Living Up to the Family Name
In a lot of small towns, folks still say things like, “You’re one of the Millers, aren’t you?” A family name carries a reputation. It tells people something about who you are and how you were raised.
In the Bible, a person’s name stands for his or her character. So when John writes about believing in the name of Jesus, he means far more than agreeing with facts about Him:
Now this is his command: that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps his commands remains in him, and he in him. And the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he has given us.
— 1 John 3:23–24 (CSB)
To believe in His name is to pattern your life after Christ’s, to become more like Him by uniting yourself with Him. And if we are living like Christ, we will love one another. That mutual relationship, living in Christ as He lives in us, shows itself in believers who keep three essential commands:
Believe in Christ. Trust Him fully as Savior and Lord.
Love the brothers and sisters. Treat the family of God the way Jesus treats you.
Live a morally upright life. Let your daily choices honor the name you carry.
The Holy Spirit’s presence in us is spiritual and even mysterious, but it is also wonderfully practical. Our conduct verifies His presence. The way we speak to our spouse, the patience we show a difficult coworker, the generosity we offer a struggling neighbor: these become the evidence that God truly lives in us.
Choosing the Better Way
But desire the greater gifts. And I will show you an even better way.
— 1 Corinthians 12:31 (CSB)
Paul wrote those words just before he described love in 1 Corinthians 13. He was reminding a gifted, talented, and divided church that love outranks everything else. That same invitation stands open to us today.
Think back to that family table and the empty chair. Love as a family should mean noticing who is missing and going after them. It means refusing to let old hurts harden into hate. It means rolling up our sleeves, resting in God’s grace when our hearts accuse us, praying with confidence, and living in a way that brings honor to the family name.
You and I will not do it perfectly. But by the power of the Spirit, we can choose the better way, one act of love at a time.
Your Plan of Action
Love grows through practice. Here are a few simple steps to help you put this week’s message to work:
Daily | This Week | This Month | Ongoing |
Pray 1 John 3:18 each morning and ask God to show you one person to love in action that day. | Reach out to someone you have kept at arm’s length. A call, a card, or a visit is enough to begin. | Do one act of service that can never be repaid, and keep it between you and the Lord. | Read 1 Corinthians 13:4–7 with your own name in place of “love,” and let it show you where to grow. |
When your conscience starts accusing, say Romans 8:1 out loud and rest in it. | Write down any grudge you are carrying, then hand it to God in prayer, one name at a time. | Meet a practical need in your church family: a meal, a ride, an afternoon of yard work. | Keep short accounts. Confess quickly, forgive quickly, and refuse to let resentment settle in. |
Before you ask God for something, pause and ask, “Would this please Him?” | Read 1 John 3:11–24 slowly, twice, and underline every word that describes an action. | Talk through the three essentials (believe, love, live uprightly) with a trusted friend. | Let your everyday conduct be the quiet evidence that the Spirit lives in you. |
Help · Hope · Home Love as a family should start at your own table and spread to the pew beside you. If you need help, are looking for hope, or are searching for a church home, Hope Christian Church has a seat saved for you. Come sit with us. You belong here. |
Comments