if...

if anyone has enough money to live well & see a brother or sister in need & refuses to help - how can God's love be in that person? 1 John 3:17 (NLT)


If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? (NIV)


as for the well-to-do man who sees his brothers in want but shuts his eyes—and his heart—how could anyone believe that the love of God lives in him?(J B Phillips)


Suppose a believer who is rich enough to have all the necessities of life sees a fellow believer who is poor and does not have even basic needs. What if the rich believer does not help the poor one? Then it is clear that God’s love is not in that person’s heart. (ERV)


if anyone has this world’s goods (resources for sustaining life) and sees his brother and  fellow believer in need, yet closes his heart of compassion against him, how can the love of God live and remain in him? (Amplified)


If a person owns the kinds of things we need to make it in the world but refuses to share with those in need, is it even possible that God’s love lives in him? (The Voice)


But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? (NKJV)


If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God’s love? It disappears. And you made it disappear. (The Message)


if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet  closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?



Ya know, I kept checking different translations to see if any one of them might let us off the hook here.

nope.

we live in a nation where our attitude stinks about the poor & the working poor.

it stinks, folks.

stinks.

we have been manipulated very carefully to believe that if a person is poor or working poor, they are that way because they are sorry, or slackers, or "working the system."

I'm tired of hearing this crap.

sick & tired.

read that verse again at the top of the page.

I don't think when John wrote that the poor & the working poor back then were some sort of  "noble downtrodden".

They were poor for all the same reasons people are poor or working poor today.

John did NOT give us any disclaimers when he wrote that verse.

Nor did he add a footnote or extend a special dispensation that the situation would be different for people in America in the middle of the 2nd decade of the 21st century.

He said what he said.

How can God's love be in us if we don't help the poor or the working poor?

There aren't any qualifiers to that statement.

It doesn't say "if we think they're worthy of help".

Nor does it say "unless we think they're slackers, or working the system, or lazy, or sorry"

It quite succinctly says if we who have much - which is most of us - don't help the poor & working poor, the love of God does not operate in our lives.

Pure & simple.

Period.

Think about that as we close out this year & move into the next one.

If we believe the Bible to be the word of God, then we are to take it seriously.

And if 1 John 3:17 is the word of God, how is that mandate from God going to impact us this new year in our daily, affluent lives in mid-2nd decade, 21st century America?

Don't bother to flame me w/ the current rhetoric - I'll just delete it. I'm not in the mood for a useless & pointless discussion.

This is an uncomfortable truth that we all have been manipulated into thinking the diametrically opposite.

It's time we either believe & heed the word of God in the uncomfortable areas, or simple face the fact that the love of God does not live in us.