Sometimes Christians, and by implication Christianity, have the reputation of being theoretical. If we think Christian faith is mainly about the heaven and the afterlife, it may seem that what we believe has little to do with the here and now.
John thinks just the opposite. He could hardly be more blunt or more practical.
If we believe in Christ, he says, then that ought to impact how we live.
There is no faith without obedience. To get right to the point, if we say we are Christians and we hate people, then something has gone wrong. If we are Christians, that has to affect how we treat people and how we feel about people.
For John faith is imminently practical. Faith affects how we live. Faith affects how we treat other people.
