By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)
This appears to be a summary statement regarding the dichotomy between the children of God and the children of the devil, yet the focus is on the unrighteous and the unloving.
Verse 9 has just declared that the saved can’t practice sin because the “seed of God” has been implanted in them, and there is now a symbiotic relationship between the saved and their savior, with the saved the beneficiaries, since God is God.
So then, practicing sin as one of his children will not be allowed or tolerated for long, since our father is always home. The point is, then, those who practice sin are obviously not ‘his” according to John. This is a hard pill to swallow, one that many Christians refuse to accept, because some of their loved ones qualify according to these terms in many cases, and a death sentence hangs over their heads until this matter is resolved. This kind of lifestyle also leads to awkward eulogies where pastors must embellish whatever “righteousness” that can be recalled in the departed, and feel compelled to preach the gospel at the funeral because of the captive audience.
This reality drives us to our knees. We don’t cluck our tongues and shake our heads with scorn and contempt at those who practice lawlessness. Instead, those in our orbits exhibiting no spiritual pulse need to be pursued and prayed for. The same loving God who will welcome us through his gates with outstretched arms will straight arm anyone who practiced sin on earth, meaning those who were habitually unrighteousness (internal) or unloving (external), or both.
Therefore, we have now been alerted to the prime targets for our evangelism, regardless what their t-shirt says.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21–23)
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