Loving through obedience - 1 John 5:1-4

"Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith." (1 John 5:1-4)

When Jesus came to restore us back to God, He did not come to restore us as subjects but as family. Jesus came, not to make us subjects of a king, but to make us children of our Father. John wrote of Jesus, "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." (John 1:12-13) God has plenty of subject, most walking in rebellion, but what He wants is children; children born of His grace and love; born into a new life with Him.

Jesus is the door way to this new life with God. Jesus said of Himself, "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:9-10) And, speaking of our access to the Father, He said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6) Our new life with the Father and our new birth as children of God begins with our faith in Jesus. He is our Savior and He is our way back to God. There is not other way, no other salvation, and no other name by which we may be saved.

Having been born of God, we love Him and, if we love Him, then we ought to also love those who are born of Him. I believe that, here, John is not speaking specially of Jesus but of all who are born of God. In the very next sentence, John shows us how we can love the children of God; love those born of Him; showing us that he speaks not of Jesus alone when he refers to those born of God. In loving those born of God, it is not enough to just love Jesus. We ought to also love our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So how do we love our brothers and sisters? By obeying God's commandments. To love God is to obey God. If we say we love God and yet disobey His commandments, then we lie and do not know the truth. By obeying God's commandments, we are loving God, and in loving God through obedience, we will also be loving the family of God. Paul said of love, "Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13:10) Obedience, obedience to God's will and word, is the expression of Love.

John reminds us that the commandments of God are not burdensome, not because they are trifling, but because the Father has made us able to keep them. The commandments are substantial and many are weighty. They require us to deny ourselves and the world and to live by a new standard of living. We are called to exchange our worldly way of living for a heavenly one; to lose our conformance to the world for our conformance to God. Such commands are momentous and not without contest against the flesh. However, He has granted us His grace and has made us to be overcomers in all things that we might rule and "reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:17) We are overcommers and by His overcomming power whereby His commandments have been rendered unburdensome to our lives.

This victory over the world that we have won is not a victory of might, strength, will, or endurance but a victory of faith. Victory is not found when we win but when we believe. At the moment of faith the battle may still be before us but victory has already been assigned to our account. Faith will carry the day. Let us not fear to take upon ourselves the commandments of God in an expression of loving God and loving one another for in these things He has made us "more than conquerors." (Romans 8:37 NKJV)

David Robison

Love those you can see - 1 John 4:20-21

"If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also." (1 John 4:20-21)

John is not saying that loving our brothers and sisters is a prerequisite to loving God, rather, that anyone who loves God will, by nature, also love their brothers and sisters. Love for one another is, in part, the fruit of loving God.

It is much easier for us to love those whom we can see; we love our families, our friends, our heroes but how does one love God? How does one love someone whom they cannot see, hear, or touch? How do we love an invisible God? Furthermore, how do we love one who is self-sufficient and who needs no love? Someone has everything they need and possesses infinite love within them, how do we love such a one? We love them by loving the things they love and care for. We love them by loving their creations and the works of their hands.

Jesus, speaking of the judgment at the end of the age and of the reward for those who loved Him, congratulates them saying, "For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me." (Matthew 25:35-36) Yet, when the righteous failed to remember when they had done such things to Jesus, He said to them, "Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me." (Matthew 25:40) Truly, we love God when we love those whom He created in His image.

When loving those who God has created, we must be careful not to only love those who can love us back, but to also love the unlovely and the unlovable. Jesus warns us, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same." (Luke 6:32-33) It is easy to love those who love us back and to love those from which we receive some benefit in return, but when we love the unlovely and unlovable because they are God's children, then we are loving God as well.

Herein lies the truth of what John is saying: we cannot separate the love of God from the love of people; they are one and the same. We cannot love God and, at the same time, ignore those whom He has created. One must lead to the other. If we say we love God but fail to love His people, then we have failed to understand love and the God who is love. Those who truly love God will also love those created by Him. This is an immutable truth.

David Robison

Made perfect in love - 1 John 4:18-19

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:18-19)

Love is more than a feeling. It is a process that works in our lives to bring us into conformance to the image and nature of Christ. It is a process that does not start with us, nor originates within us, but a process whose genesis is God and which advances in our lives from above. It is a process for which our dependence, and thanks, belongs to God.

John writes of us being perfected in Love. Perfection, in the Greek, has the idea of hitting the mark, maturing to full stature, and being complete in every aspect of our lives, including relationally, vocationally, intellectually, and morally. To be perfect is to be full-grown and to reach the zenith of our existence. The process of God's love is a process to complete us from within that we might be full-grown men and women of God. The degree to which God's love has its way within us is the degree to which we have matured and grown in God.

One of the hallmark characteristics of love is found in its opposition to fear. Not only is love absent of all fear but it actively and decidedly seeks to dispel it from its presence. There is no fear in love nor can it tolerate fear in its presence. Either love or fear must go and love is greater than fear. The degree to which fear still remains in our lives is the degree to which love has yet to concur our loves and to be made perfect and complete within us.

Specifically, the kind of fear that John is talking about is the fear of punishment. The Greek word for this punishment is used only one other time in the New Testament in referring to our eternal punishment and torment in Hell. "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matthew 25:46) This punishment is a judicial punishment from having been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

There are things we fear because they are fearful, such a standing before a wild beast or an army in battle array. There are things that we fear because we understand their risk, like standing on a cliff or crossing in the middle of a busy street. However, there are other things we fear because of their ability to judge and diminish us in the sight of ourselves and others. We fear public speaking because we are afraid of what people might think of us. We fear sharing our thoughts and ideas with other people because we are afraid that others might laugh at us. We fear making mistakes because we are afraid that people will judge us. All these fears are fears of judgment; fears of how people will judge us and condemn us for our failings and shortcomings. Chief of all these fears is the fear of being judged and condemned by God; the fear of being found guilty and a sinner and less than what God demands or desires us to be. We all fear judgment.

However, when we were at our worst, the love of God came to cast out our fear and to begin a process of conforming us on the inside to His image and nature. God did not wait for us to become perfect before He loved us, He loved us that we might become perfect in love. In Christ, God put away His judgment upon us leaving only His love to rule and reign in our lives. Where their was once judgment, Jesus took that judgment upon Himself, returning love for judgment in our lives. We no longer need to fear God nor His judgment as long as we have His love in our lives. Let us learn to live in His love rather than cower in fear; in fear of a judgment what He has already satisfied.

David Robison

Knowing and Believing - 1 John 4:16-17

"We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world." (1 John 4:16-17)

There are two aspects to the love of God in our lives. There is the knowing and there is the believing. Sometimes it seems that the love of God is everywhere. We feel His presence and we see His loving care for us all around us. Everything we do seems to be dripping with His love. Then there are those other times... times when God seems distant, when we cannot feel His presence, when we long for His love but cannot perceive it in the circumstances that assail our lives. These are the times when we must believe His love. There are times of experiencing His love but there will also be times when we are called upon to believe His love even though, at the moment, we are not experiencing it.

In some of the circles I move in. there is a premium place upon experience. We sing songs like, "I'm desperate for your presence," and "I cannot live without your presence," and, while in one since it is true, if we are refereeing to experiential Christianity, then these songs are wrong. God wants to bring us to a place where we are no longer dependent upon an experience but have come to a place of maturity where we can navigate life by faith; believing in God's love even at times when we cannot seem to "feel" His love. Believing in God for the reality behind the experience even while the actual experience is eluding us. In fact, sometimes the blessing of experiencing only follows after the work of believing. David said, "I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (Psalm 27:13) Many times, David experienced the love of God in the Land of the Living, but often that experience cam subsequent to the believing of it.

The key to God's presence in our life is not to sit and wait for it, or to strive to produce it, but to step forth in a life that has been brought into conformance with His. God is love, and when we live our lives in expressing that love to other's, then we are abiding in God and He in us. Regardless of how keenly we "feel" that presence, those who abide in love abide in God. The writer of Hebrews said, "Make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed." (Hebrews 12:13) Sometimes we must order our lives aright before we get to experience what we desire. Sometimes we must show the love of God to others before we experience it for ourselves. If we abide in love then we know we abide in God and those who abide in God will, over the course of time, also experience that same love. However, those who wait for love to show love may never experience the love they so desperately desire.

Love is perfected in us when we become like Him in the world; when we learn to love in this world like He too loved in this world and continues to love though He is now seated in heaven. To become like God in this world is to become loving and to love. The closer we reach this goal, the more it is shown that His love has been perfected in our lives. In the end, when we stand before the great judgment seat of Christ, we will have confidence in same measure to the amount of love we were able to show while alive. To those whose lives were conformed to Christ and conformed to love, great will be their confidence on that day for, as He was in the earth, so were they while alive. Let us not wait to show forth God's love, neither waiting to experience it or to release it to others. Let us believe in the Love of God and set out to show it to all who long to experience it in their lives.

David Robison

He abides in God - 1 John 4:13-15

"By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." (1 John 4:13-15)

The promise of Jesus is the promise of God with us. Matthew wrote, "Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel,' which translated means, "God with us.'" (Matthew 1:22-23) Since the days of Adam and Eve's sin, God has been distant from us; separated from us by our sins. However, God longs to have fellowship and communion with us as He once did in the Garden of Eden when he openly communed and walked with our first parents. Sin had separated us from God but Jesus was the plan to reunite us once again in vital relationship with God our Father. No more would God be external to us but He would be one with us; living in us and communing  with our souls. Jesus prayed this very thing when He said, "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me." (John 17:22-23)

Such a recommendation of Jesus, as our savior and reconciler to God, does not come to us third-hand but comes to us from the eye-witnesses of these events; from those who lived and travel with Jesus; those who saw His ministry, miracles, and heard His teaching; from those who saw Him die and saw Him resurrected to life again. These are the ones who testify of Jesus and recommend Him to us. John himself was an eye-witness to Jesus and he wrote of his own testimony saying, "This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true." (John 21:24) Our faith is not in fables but in actual events related to us by those who saw and experienced them.

Jesus is the door and without Him we have neither the Father or the Spirit. Jesus testified of Himself, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6) To receive the Spirit of God into our lives we must first receive Jesus and His saving work in our lives. To know the Father we must first know Jesus who is the image of the Father. As Jesus told Philip, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:9) Our spiritual life begins with Jesus. To deny Him is to Deny all of God and to close ourselves off from His Kingdom, power, and salvation. Many have come claiming to be Jesus or to be a savior to mankind but Jesus said of them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:7-10) Jesus is the only way to life abundant. If we desire to live abundantly and in relationship with God then we must enter through Jesus. Have you confessed Him today?

David Robison

We ought to love - 1 John 4:11-12

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:11-12)

Jesus, speaking about how we should expect to be treated in this life as He was, said, "A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!" (Matthew 10:24-25) It is the goal of a disciple to be like his teacher, a slave his master, and children their parents. The role of a disciple is to discipline their lives in imitation and conformity to their teacher; to grow to one day be like them in all ways. Speaking of how we ought to love one another, Jesus said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35) Love was one of the distinguishing factors of Jesus' disciples. Jesus loved so His disciples love. They loved because they had become like their teacher who Himself was loving and good. If we are His disciples then we will be those who love. If we love not, then we are not His disciples.

We live in a world where people long to see something real. They long to know of the spiritual realities around them. They long to know God that the world around them might make since. They want to seek and know the creator of the universe and of themselves, but how can they know and see someone who is invisible. It's like trying to see the wind. However, Jesus said of the wind, "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going." (John 3:8) You see the wind by seeing its effects. You hear it blowing, you see the trees swaying, and you see the birds suspended in its midst. The same is true of God. We see God through His effects in our loves. One of the primary ways people see God is through the effect of His love in their lives and we are often the vehicle He uses to show that love to people. People see God's love in our lives and they experience His love through our lives and they know He is real. We ought to love, not just to be like Him, but so that the world might come to know Him and His love.

But how can mere man come to love like God loves? God has given us two special endowments to aid us in loving like He loves. First is His abiding within us. If the very Spirit of God who is love abides within us, how can we help but love? The God who is love lives within us to give us His love that we might love others with it. Our love is insufficient for the task, but His love is boundless and, if we will let it, will flow through us to those who need it. Secondly, God has given us His love for ourselves. Most of us come to Jesus as broken and hurting people. Often times, hurting people hurt other people. However, if we allow the love of God to heal us on the inside then it will help us to be more loving and gentile on the outside. As we grow to experience the love and healing of God for ourselves we will find it more natural to be loving and helpful to others around us. When these two things combine and mature in our lives, His presence within us and His love healing us, then we will become like our teacher. We will be people who have become love.

David Robison

Love loves first - 1 John 4:9-10

"By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10)

When love is something that resides only in our hearts, it does little good to anyone. Solomon said, "Open rebuke is better than love carefully concealed." (Proverbs 27:5 NKJV) Our affections and attitudes towards others find their meaning when they are expressed and communicated in a way that others can experience and understand. It does no good to love someone if you never communicate that love in both words and actions. Love must be demonstrated to be understood.

The same is true with God. God loves us and we experience and recognize that love when it intersects with our lives in ways that makes a difference in us. The greatest expression of love was shown when the Father sent His only Son to live and die in our place that we might be reconciled back to God. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) The phrase, "God so loved," is not in reference to how much He loved us, rather it depicts the manner in which God demonstrated His love for us: "For God in this way loved the world..." God loved us by doing something for us.

There are two important thing we must understand about the nature of love. First is that love loves first. The love of God was demonstrated towards us, not after we first loved God, but before our hearts were ever turned in love towards Him. God loved us even before we loved Him. Sometimes we withhold love waiting for the other person to make the first move. For example, we withhold forgiveness waiting for the other person to be the first to say "I'm sorry." However, true love does not act so. Love is not a reaction but a choice to do what is right and good towards another person even if they don't respond in kind. Love reaches out without regard to how the other person is feeling towards us. Love chooses to love first.

The second import truth about love is that love loves without regard to the other person. God loved us, not when we were perfect, but when we were sinners and enemies of His kingdom. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us... For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." (Romans 5:8, 10) Sometimes we only love when those who receive our love are worthy of our love. We love those who are lovely and loveable. However, God loves the unlovely and the unlovable. God loved us even when we weren't lovely, lovable, or worthy. He loved us when we weren't deserving of His love. Love loves, not because someone is worthy or deserving, but because it chooses to love.

Love loves first and love loves the unlovely. Is this the nature of our love?

David Robison

God is love - 1 John 4:7-8

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8)

There are many things that God is and isn't, among them: "God is not a man" (Numbers 23:19) "God is a consuming fire" (Deuteronomy 4:24) "God is gracious and compassionate" (2 Chronicles 30:9) "God is righteous" (Daniel 9:14) "God is spirit" (John 4:24) "God is faithful" (1 Corinthians 1:9) and "God is Light." (1 John 1:5) Here, John adds one more, "God is love." John does not say God is loving, though He is, but rather that He is love. His whole existence in both words and deeds expresses the very nature of love. He is the very definition and measure of love. He is the standard by which our love is measured and understood. That which conforms to God conforms to love. To love and to be loving is to be like God, for God is love.

Love is a quality that is unique to God and originated with God. We share in this quality because we are made in His image. The rest of creation is devoid of Love. A rock, a tree, and a bird cannot express love for, though created by God, there weren't created in His image. However, mankind was created in His image and, as such, is capable of feeling and expressing true love. When we express love we are expressing a quality of God that He has placed within us as part of our creation. To be loving is to be Godlike.

While all of mankind is capable of expressing love, not everyone does so in equal measure. Some express little love and others only to those who love them back. Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." (Luke 6:32) Others, while knowing how to love at one time, have let circumstances and events chill the love they once had inside. Jesus warned us that as we approached the latter days, "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold." (Matthew 24:12) The truth is that we all have the capability to love but not all of us love, at least not at all times and in all ways. How can we grow in love and become more loving?

If we are to grow in love then we must grow in our knowledge and understanding of God. The more we know God the more we become like Him and, the more we become like Him, the more we will bear His image, and His image is an image of love. Love is not something we can achieve by ourselves. We can never overcome our own self-interests and self-love to actually love others without the transforming influence of God in our lives. We need Him to teach is how to love and how to deny ourselves that we might be available to love others. Growing in God is the only way to grow in love. Those who do not know God cannot and will not love, but those who know God are being transformed into love itself until one day it is said of them that they too are love.

David Robison

You have overcome them - 1 John 4:4-6

"You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." (1 John 4:4-6)

We were not always from God. Even though God had created us, we, for a time, spent our lives as being from the world; living according to its dictates, its interests, and its plan. We lived our lives subject to the forces and influences of the world, doing their bidding, and suffering the loss. We were "slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness" (Romans 6:19) and not truly free within ourselves. While from the world we were subject to the spirit of anti-christ and our lives were lived in opposition to Christ and His Kingdom. However, now we have been born from above. We have been, "rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son." (Colossians 1:13) We are no longer from the world. We are now from God.

Now that we are from God we are no longer subject to the spirit of anti-christ but have overcome them by the grace and power of the Spirit that resides within us. We no longer need to fear the world or the world system for something greater is within us. We are destine to win. We are destine to overcome. We have risen above the world and are now free to live a life spent pursuit of God and in obedience to His will and calling. While we used to be slaves of sin, we are now free to become "slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification." (Romans 6:19) A new life has been opened up to us and we are free to enter in.

Where you are from makes all the difference in the world. Those who are from the world hear those who are also from the world. They cannot hear or understand those who are from God because they are earthly and natural. Those who are from God hear those who are also from God. They can hear and understand those who are from the world but they choose rather the message that is from above. They have rejected the message from the world and have chosen to follow that which is from heaven for they too are heavenly in their regeneration and calling.

We know where people are from by what message they listen to. Those who follow the message of the spirit of anti-christ are of this world and are following error. Those who listen to the message of God are from God and following truth. To tell the difference you need only to see who is following what. Are you following the spirit of truth?

David Robison

Watch out for the antichrist - 1 John 4:1-3

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world." (1 John 4:1-3)

As we have previously seen from John, the antichrist is not a person but a spirit that pervades over the Earth. There are many who are antichrist, not because they fulfill some prophetic office or role in the end times, but because they represent the opposite of what Jesus came to teach and to do. Even so shortly after the formation of the church, false prophets and false apostles had already risen teaching things that were not right. They claimed to be christs, in that they claimed to be anointed, but their teaching and deeds were opposed to Christ. They were anti-Christ. Even today there are many who claim enlightenment and who purport to speak for God, yet their actions and words deny Him and they themselves are following the spirit of antichrist.

The problem for the early church, and for us today, was to know how to tell the difference between the true prophets and apostles and the false ones. Much of the heresy the early church had to face centered around the question as to who Jesus was in His nature and His relationship to God. The heresies were broadly split between those who claimed that Jesus was purely God and only appeared in human form but never was born or suffered as a man and those who claimed Him to be solely a man, perhaps an enlighten man, but not God and certainly not perfect or unique. The issue boiled down to that of spirit and flesh. Did God's Spirit really come down and take on human flesh becoming both God and man? The unequivocal answer of the early church was "Yes!" Jesus was both God and man therefore He could redeem us as God because He suffered for us as man. Though such a composition of the human and divine may be beyond our ability to comprehend or fully understand, it was nonetheless the true nature of Jesus and the exact formulation that was necessary for our salvation.

In helping the church distinguish between the two, I believe that John was not giving an exhaustive list of challenges to prove if a profit was false or true, but rather was answering their need for discernment according to the need of the day. Today, those heresies we face may not turn around the question of Jesus and His nature; they may be new heresies focused on new doctrinal issues. However, the proof is still the same. Those who set themselves against and in opposition to the words and deeds of Christ set themselves against Him and His mission. They are too antichrist!

Just as there were antichrists in John's day so there are today, yet me must not yield to them nor give them our attention. Jesus, speaking of the antichrists, said, "So if they say to you, 'Behold, He is in the wilderness,' do not go out, or, 'Behold, He is in the inner rooms,' do not believe them." (Matthew 24:26) Our's is not to hunt them out but rather to avoid them. They do not participate in the work of God and we have so much work to do. Let us recognize them but not be distracted by them. Let us be devoted to the work of Christ and leave them to the opposite,

David Robison