In January our church held its annual congregational fast. For 21 days we prayed together, fasted together and meditated on 1 John . Here are my thoughts from those times of devotion in 1 John.

Beloved, I am not writing to you a new commandment, but an old one, which you have had from the beginning. This commandment is the message you have heard. 8Then again, I am also writing to you a new commandment, which is true in Him and also in you. For the darkness is fading and the true light is already shining.

9If anyone claims to be in the light but hates his brother, he is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no cause of stumbling in him. 11But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

MEDITATIONAL THOUGHT: The commandment to love one another is both old (from the beginning) and new (embodied in Christ).

MY THOUGHTS: St. Augustine of Hippo said, The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed.”

Here in John 2 we see that love and restoration has been God’s point all along. From the Old Testament to and through the New Testament love is thread that runs and hems everything together. Restoration of a whole is the point. There can be no salvation without love and there can be no salvation without restoration.

Hate is a separator and so it has no place in the body of Christ because it has no place in God where people are concerned. The only thing God hates is sin itself because it has the potential to separate God from the ones He loves.