To love God is to be obedient to His commands and principles, to be responsible in fulfilling ones obligations which God expects of us, and so forth in ones life. One especially has to be in fellowship since the love of God is a spiritual phenomena and a pattern of thinking and a pattern of life which functions only within the environment which God has defined for our sake. That environment we call being in fellowship.
To love God and hate one’s brother is impossible.
‘Whoso rejecteth you rejecteth Me, and whoso rejecteth Me rejecteth Him that sent Me.’
God the Father authored a plan. Whomever rejects that plan rejects the Father also. This is the basis of the failure of all religions regardless of their acknowledgment of God or any kind of a god. All religions are in fact lies. Christianity is not a religion, but a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
There is only one God, only one path to God, only one spiritual life, only one means of attaining that spiritual life, only one spiritual growth, and only one means of advancing to spiritual maturity.
With respect to mankind, we relate to people through the function of our thoughts and actions in life. With God we relate to God through obedience to His will. With man we relate to man through our interactions with him.
You must have a relationship with God first before you can have a meaningful relationship with mankind. Any relationship while out of fellowship is futile and categorized as evil, or as hate, as John uses the term and has taught in this book. Hate and love are mutually exclusive.
Any relationship with ones self too, has to be preceded by a relationship with God, otherwise you cannot orient yourself to yourself in the truest sense of the concept. Apart from a firm relationship with God, then your self esteem will be flawed. You will be susceptible to paranoia’s, fears in its many forms, mental problems in their many forms and so forth.
A person operating within the environment of the dark has nothing in which to place his trust. You cannot see anything, you cannot see the truth while residing in the dark (out of fellowship). You may be able to see people and things of this physical world, but of the spiritual world there is no sight except through the Word of God while residing in the light (in fellowship).
Only the spiritually advancing believer in fellowship has the ability to see, or perceive of, God, through the scriptures learned.
You cannot have a relationship with God alone. Your spiritual life must overflow to your daily physical life in order to complete the full circle of wisdom and pattern of life within your life.
