1 John 4:20

The Passion Translation

Anyone can say, “I love God,” yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes him a phony, because if you don’t love a brother or sister, whom you can see, how can you truly love God, whom you can’t see?

Cross References

John 13:35

For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re my true followers.”

1 Peter 1:8

You love him passionately although you have not seen him, but through believing in him you are saturated with an ecstatic joy, indescribably sublime and immersed in glory.

1 John 1:6

If we claim that we share life with him, but keep walking in the realm of darkness, we’re fooling ourselves and not living the truth.

1 John 1:8

If we boast that we have no sin, we’re only fooling ourselves and are strangers to the truth.

1 John 2:11

But whoever hates a fellow believer lives in the darkness—stumbling around in the dark with no clue where he is going, for he is blinded by the darkness.

1 John 2:4

If someone claims, “I have come to know God by experience,” yet doesn’t keep God’s commands, he is a phony and the truth finds no place in him.

1 John 2:9

Anyone who says, “I am in the light,” while holding hatred in his heart toward a fellow believer is still in the darkness.

1 John 3:17

If anyone sees a fellow believer in need and has the means to help him, yet shows no pity and closes his heart against him, how is it even possible that God’s love lives in him?

1 John 4:12

No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor. But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us.