Are you a Cain?

What would you do for a member of the family of God? Do you love them enough to do what ever they need, or are you willing to cut them down at the knees? When we think back to the earliest history of the Bible, we see the story of the first brothers: Cain and Abel. Here were two men who both served God, and lived to serve him. However, Cain’s gift to God did not please God and it counted to him as unrighteousness. Cain grew envious and jealous of Abel, and struck him down.
Now many of you are saying, “I would never kill another brother! I could never be a Cain!” However, John paints a different picture in I John 2:11-18. He explains here that the world hates you, but we have passed out of that death into a new life. Love is the marker of this new life, and if it is not present then it means that we reside in death. Then John makes a bold statement to tie it all together, “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him (v. 15).” John solidifies this accusation by sharing that those of us who are blessed with worldly gain and see a brother in trouble, but do nothing to help are void of the love of God. We become spiritual murderers of our own brothers, and create an elitist idea based on material goods. John simply ends by saying, “Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth.” We must begin to live by these words. Empty words are the song of failure, but actions are the anthems of success