This document discusses the importance of forgiveness and love according to Christian teachings. It makes the following key points: 1) Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to love God with all your being and love your neighbor as yourself. True Christians cannot love God without forgiving others and loving all people, as they are all God's children. 2) People have free will to choose God or not, but once choosing God they must obey His commandments, not live as they choose. You cannot serve both God and wealth/Satan. 3) To overcome sin requires diligent prayer, Bible study, asking forgiveness, and relying on God's strength, not one's own efforts. Forgiveness and love

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God has been impressing upon me to share what it means to forgive and love one
another. These two topics revolve around God’s greatest commandment. In Matthew 22:36-40,
Christ was asked which is the greatest commandment in the Law. And He said to him, “YOU
SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL
YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.
The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these
two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”
Christians cannot love the lord our God with all of our heart and all of our soul when we
fail to forgive and to love God’s children. Who are Gods’ children; every person who has ever
been born are God’s children. That may be a tuff pill for you to swallow, but this truth is of God,
as only God creates life. Satan is powerless in creating life. Satan is the master of deception,
who introduced hate and its offspring (i.e. envy, strife, discontent, greed, maliciousness, scorn,
pride, etc.) into the world.
God does not force His children to believe in Him or to follow His commandments.
Free-Will is paramount for those who are God’s children. People have the free-will to choose
God, or not to choose God. However, once we chose to follow God, we are commanded to
perform as God instructs us to, not as we chose to. This is where the rubber meets the road. In
Matthew 6: Christ tells us; “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and
love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and
wealth.” Simply stated, “You cannot serve God and Satan!”
So the question must be asked; “Are you going to become a true Christian who
overcomes your sin nature through diligent prayer, studying the bible, asking God for
forgiveness when you sin and for the strength necessary to overcome sin, or are you going to

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attempt to overcome sin on your own accord?” Attempting to do the latter is foolishness, and a
lie that Satan wants you to believe: He likes to tell you, “you can do it on your own; do not
worry; you are a successful man/woman and need no one to assist you.”
I chose to live my life on my own accord for 50 years. While I was successful in
business, raised three beautiful children and my friends looked-up to me, I did not know how
much of a failure and a fool I was until I came to know who God was and what He expected of
me as His child. When we choose to obey God, He gives us the tools that are necessary to
overcome our flesh and our sin problems. Anything else is just a temporary fix which leads us
into a false sense of security. Think about this for a moment, what have you ever done in your
life that has amounted to anything when you did not ask God what He wanted you to do and/or
follow His instructions. You may be saying a lot of things like; this and that has made me a lot
of money, friends, and companions, yet again I remind you these are only temporary – These too
will pass away – I assure you. Only what God gives us will last forever – period! And I am not
talking about material possessions. I speak of the fruits of His Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control; (Gal 5:22-23).
Forgiveness and Love go hand in hand. You cannot love if you do not forgive - vice
versa. You cannot say I have forgiven this person when you hold a grudge against them. You
cannot say you love someone when you hold a grudge or hate someone who has personally
harmed you, or for that matter, someone who has never personally harmed you, but has harmed
someone else. You are living by your own accord living this lie. You are living by Satan’s
standards when you act in such a manner. Christ shares the following through His apostles:
 1 John 2:9-11, the Apostle John shares, “The one who says he is in the
Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his

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brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who
hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where
he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”
 Matthew 6:14-15; “For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your
heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father
will not forgive your transgressions.”
 1 John 3:15; “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you
know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”
 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we
should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And
for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brothers were
righteous (1 John 3:11-12).
Abel’s deeds were righteous because he chose to follow God and God’s commandments.
He chose to please God and not himself. He did not choose to place his self-centered, egotistical,
pompous values before the values God commands and freely gives to those who give their lives
to Him. When you fail to forgive and love, your deeds are evil. You cannot exhibit the fruits of
God’s spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-
control; (Gal 5:22-23); when you fail to forgive and love. You are living a lie which only Satan
approves of. You are continuing in sin and are capable of turning these deeds, this sin, into
chronic sin which has further dire consequences, which will be discussed herein.
We are told in 1 John 3:1-10: “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that
we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know
us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared

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as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will
see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He
is pure.” This does not mean that we are to wait to change our ways until we are in heaven with
Christ: We are not to practice evil, we are to overcome evil, and we are not to be in chronic sin.
We must fight our sin with the power of God so that we can love and forgive.
1 John 1:7; a genuine Christian walks habitually in the light (truth and holiness), not in
darkness (falsehood and sin). Their walk also results in cleansing from sin as the Lord
continually forgives His own. Since those walking in the light share in the character of God, they
will be habitually characterized by His holiness (3 John 11), indicating their true fellowship with
Him (James 1:27). A genuine Christian does not walk in darkness but only in the light (2 Cor.
6:14; Eph. 5:8; Col. 1:12, 13), and cleansing from sin continually occurs (cf. v. 9).1
John continues here; “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is
lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children,
make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is
righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born
of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of
God. 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.2
1 John Jr MacArthur, The MacArthurStudy Bible, electronic ed. (Nashville: Word Pub., 1997), 1 John
Chapters 1-3.
2 Ibid.

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John was very concerned that Christians know how to tell the true from the false; the
genuine from the artificial; true believers from false ones. He presents tests here and throughout
this letter to help determine the validity of anybody’s claims to be a Christian.3
1John 3:4–10: These verses deal with the Christian’s incompatibility with sin. In this
section, John gives 4 reasons why true Christians cannot habitually practice sin:
 John 8:31; So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If
you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine
 John 8:34–36; Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone
who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the
son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
 Rom. 6:11; Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also
live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die
again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once
for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead
to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
 2 John 9; anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of
Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and
the Son.
1John 3:4; Commits sin: The verb, “commits,” in the Gr. conveys the idea of making sin
a habitual practice. Although genuine Christians have a sin nature (1:8), and do commit and need
to confess sin (1:9; 2:1), that is not the unbroken pattern of their lives. A genuinely born again
3 Ibid.

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believer has a built-in check or guard against habitual sinning due to a new nature (“born of
God”—v. 9; Rom. 6:12). Sin is lawlessness.4
The first reason why Christians cannot practice sin is because sin is incompatible with
the law of God which they love (Ps. 119:34, 77, 97; Rom. 7:12, 22). The term “lawlessness”
conveys more than transgressing God’s law. It conveys the ultimate sense of rebellion, i.e., living
as if there was no law or ignoring what laws exist (James 4:17). Living by your own accord,
albeit, by Satan’s standards.5
1John 3:5; He was manifested to take away our sins. A second reason why Christians
cannot practice sin is because it is incompatible with the work of Christ. Christ died to sanctify
(i.e., make holy) the believer (2 Cor. 5:21; Eph. 5:25–27). To sin is contrary to Christ’s work of
breaking the dominion of sin in the believer’s life (Rom. 6:1–15).6
1John 3:6; does not sin. Like the phrase “commits sin” of verse 4, the sense conveyed
here is the idea of habitual, constant sinning. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known
Him. If no check against habitual sin exists in someone who professes to be a Christian, John’s
pronouncement is absolutely clear—salvation never took place.7
1John 3:7; let no one deceive you. The word “deceive” means “to be lead astray.” Since
false teachers were attempting to pervert the fundamentals of the faith, the possibility existed that
some Christians might be fooled into accepting what they were advocating. To prevent this
deception from occurring, John repeatedly emphasized the basics of Christianity, e.g., the need
for obedience, the need for love, and the need for a proper view of Christ. Practices
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.

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righteousness: The genuine believer’s habitual lifestyle of righteousness stands in sharp
contrast to those false teachers who practiced sin (cf. vv. 4, 6). Since Christ died on the cross to
transform sinners, those truly born again have replaced the habit of sin with the habit of
righteous living (Rom. 6:13, 14). Just as He is righteous: Those who are truly born again
reflect the divine nature of the Son. They behave like Him, manifesting the power of His life in
them (Gal. 2:20).8
1John 3:8; he who sins: This phrase means “who habitually practice sin” (see notes on
vv. 4, 6). Of the devil: The phrase gives the source of the false teachers’ actions. The term devil
means accuser or slanderer. Not only does Satan oppose God and His plan, but is the originator
and instigator of sin and rebellion against God and His law (v. 4; see notes on Eph. 6:10–17).
Therefore, all the unsaved are under the diabolic influence of Satan. Their sinful lifestyle reflects
their satanic origin (see note on Eph. 2:1). John contrasts the children of God with the children of
Satan in terms of their actions. While those who are truly born again reflect the habit of
righteousness, Satan’s children practice sin. From the beginning: Since Satan was originally
created as perfect and only later rebelled against God (Is. 14:12–14; Ezek. 24:12–17), John
probably means the moment of his rebellion against God, the beginning of his rebellious career.
Since sin characterizes him completely, so everyone characterized by sin must derive from him
(cf. John 8:44). For this purpose … that He might destroy.9
A third reason why Christians cannot practice sin is because Christ came to destroy the
works of the arch-sinner, Satan. The devil is still operating, but he has been defeated and in
Christ we escape his tyranny. The day will come when all of Satan’s activity will cease in the
universe and he will be sent to hell forever (Rev. 20:10). Works of the devil: This summarizes a
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.

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variety of the devil’s activities: sin, rebellion, temptation, ruling the world, persecution and
accusation of saints, instigation of false teachers, power of death (e.g., Luke 8:12; John 8:44;
Acts 5:3; 1 Cor. 7:5; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 6:11,12; 1 Thess. 2:18; Heb. 2:14; Rev. 12:10).10
1John 3:9; the fourth reason why Christians cannot practice sin is because it is
incompatible with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who has imparted a new nature to the believer
(John 3:5–8). Born of God: John wrote here of the new birth (John 3:7). When people become
Christians, God makes them new creatures with new natures (2 Cor. 5:17). Believers have God’s
characteristics because they have been born into God’s family. This new nature exhibits the
habitual character of righteousness produced by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22–24). John repeats this
phrase twice for emphasis. His seed: The new birth involves the acquisition of a seed, which
refers to the principle of life of God imparted to the believer at salvation’s new birth. John uses
this image of a planted seed to picture the divine element involved in being born again.
Remains: The word conveys the idea of the permanence of the new birth which cannot be
reversed, for those who are truly born again are permanently transformed into a new creation (2
Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:10). He cannot sin: This phrase once again conveys the idea of
habitual sinning (see vv. 4, 6).11
1John 3:10; this summary verse is the key to vv. 4–10. Only two kinds of children exist
in the world: children of God and children of Satan. No one can belong to both families
simultaneously. Either one belongs to God’s family and exhibits His righteous character or one
belongs to Satan’s family and exhibits his sinful nature.12
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.

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1John 3:10b; he who does not love his brother. This phrase introduces the readers to the
second aspect of the moral test, i.e., the test of love (as in 2:7–11). John develops this thought
through vv. 11–24. The false teachers not only had an erroneous view of Christ’s nature and
displayed disobedience to God’s commands, but they also displayed a distinct lack of love for
true believers, who rejected their heretical teaching.13
1John 3:11–24; John elaborates on the love life of genuine believers. For those who are
truly born again, love is an indispensable characteristic. The new nature or “seed” (v. 9) that
God imparts not only exhibits holiness but also love as a habitual characteristic (John 13:35;
Rom. 5:5; 1 Thess. 4:9). Those who practice love give proof of the new birth, while those who
do not, have never been born again.14
In closing, I pray that the words spoken here have unveiled your eyes, and God has
revealed to you, that what you may be doing through your failure to forgive and to love, at best
jeopardizes your fellowship with our Heavenly Father and at worst - your salvation. I challenge
you to call Satan a liar, and call upon God to help you overcome you inability to forgive and to
love as He has forgiven and continues to love and forgive us.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.