1 John 5:2

We can know that we love God’s children. We do so when we obey God. God has given this command to us. We must love both him and his children. If we love God then we must love other Christians as well. We cannot love God if we do not love his children. It is not possible really to love his children if we do not love God.

Verse 3

We obey God’s commands because we love God

Love for God is this, that we obey his commands. This is how we express our love for God. If we love God, we will obey his commands. This is the essential result of our love for God.

His commands are not too difficult for us. They are not too hard because God makes us able to do them. We love him, so we desire to do them. The Christian likes to do whatever God wants.

Verse 4

Our *faith helps us to overcome everything that opposes us

We can obey God because we have overcome the *world. We trust in Jesus. This gives us success in the struggle. We overcome because we are born of God. Because of the birth from God, we overcome the *world. This new birth is the event that frees us from the *world. This new birth takes us away from the rule of the devil. This new birth makes us children of God.

The *world means all that opposes God, the church and Christians. This may be *persecution of the Christians. Or the world might try to tempt Christians to do wrong things. Many things try to destroy their trust in the *Lord Jesus. But in all these things, God gives the strength to overcome.

We overcome the *world when we first trust in Christ. He has already fought the battle for us and he has won. We are born into the success that Jesus has won. We now have to go on in that success. By trusting in him, we can overcome the *world in our lives.

It is our *faith that wins. *Faith is our trust in Christ and what we believe. We believe that Jesus is the *Christ. And we believe that he is the Son of God. We trust him to *save us and to keep us from all evil. We expect him to do all that God has promised. This belief and trust leads to the defeat of the *world. By our *faith we overcome the *world.