If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him.
You have made yourselves pure by obeying the truth. Now you can have true love for your brothers and sisters. So love each other deeply—with all your heart.
God once said, “Let light shine out of the darkness!” And this is the same God who made his light shine in our hearts to let us know that his own divine greatness is seen in the face of Christ.
But now you know the true God. Really, though, it is God who knows you. So why do you turn back to the same kind of weak and useless rules you followed before? Do you want to be slaves to those things again?
My dear friends, I am not writing a new command to you. It is the same command you have had since the beginning. This command is the teaching you have already heard.
Those who are God’s children do not continue to sin, because the new life God gave them stays in them. They cannot keep sinning, because they have become children of God.