Continuing the Meditation on 1 John

1 John 4: 1- 6 - Testing the spirits.

When I read 1 John 4:1-6, I remember that these words were written in another time, to people facing different challenges. So I ask - how does this speak to me now, in this moment? At first it can seem almost a pointless conversation with God. Who around me denies that Jesus came in the flesh, except those who do not believe at all? And even they are not mine to challenge - only to witness to. Their disbelief doesn’t shake my faith. Even among those who differ with me in matters of doctrine, most still confess that He came in the flesh. So what is relevant for me today in these verses?

The wonder of contemplative prayer is that I can simply sit with God. Though I’m most often distracted and rarely sense His presence, somehow He still reaches me - quietly, with what He knows is needed in that moment for His purpose. Through this, my direction and faith become clearer.

I’ve come to see that the “spirits” John speaks of are not the people around me who fail to believe, but the inner movements within my own being that resist Christ’s life in me. In prayer, I try to keep all else outside the surface of my awareness - anything beyond the outer layer of my skin, holding to a few simple words that help me stay present to Him. The distractions that draw me away are, in a sense, the denials of Christ. And when I am still, I sometimes sense subtler forces - those inner voices that question love, hope, and trust. What else could they be but the very spirits that deny Him?

These, I think, are the spirits of the antichrist that the scripture warns about - the ones truly relevant today. The testing of spirits begins not in the outer world, but in the inner one - the kingdom within. There lies both the danger and the path to truth.

Continuing the Meditation on 1 John

1 John 3: 11-24 - Hate

A Love Letter to Those I Would Love to Hate.

It is easy to look at fellow Christians and feel the weight of judgment - their words, their attitudes, the way they treat others - and it stirs something sharp in me. I call it hate when I see it in them - yet I see it in myself as well. I measure them against God’s word - but perhaps they do the same with me. Some would call me “woke” - as if that alone made me unfaithful. I cannot find such a thing in Scripture - but still I know this much: if hate rises in me, it does not come from God but from the world. And I cannot know their hearts - that belongs to God alone. Who am I to judge?

And yet here is the dilemma we all carry. I see these things in others - and I want to push back, even to hate. But I also long to help them see - without condemning. How do I speak truth in a way that is love? How do I reach others as Jesus would - when my own heart is tangled with fear, frustration, and pride? Perhaps you feel this too - the urge to condemn, the struggle to love, the weight of wanting to be faithful but stumbling all the same. It is hard to be a Christian.

Still, the truth whispers - love is not in words alone. Love is not even in indignation or anger. Love is in truth and in action - and it calls us back to humility. Our hearts may condemn us - showing the failures we cannot hide - yet even here God is greater. He is love - holding us, holding you, holding me - even in our blindness, even in our struggle.

And so - to those I am tempted to hate, and to anyone who reads this - we are not so different. We are caught in the same search for truth, the same longing to love, the same stumbling toward faithfulness. Let us not condemn each other. Let us allow love itself to do the work in us. And in the quiet that follows - perhaps we can feel God’s presence between us - not as a solution we control, but as the still point where judgment falls away and love simply abides.