Life, as a child of God, should be full of love.  Our eternal life starts when we repent of our rebellion against God and receive His love and forgiveness.  Love is normal for God because He is love; and so for those who have His seed (1 John 3:9), loving is the normal way of relating.  Jesus commanded that His disciples should love each other as He loved them.  Indeed, love was to be the hallmark of discipleship (John 13:34-35) – the stamp of authenticity of being a child of God.

Alas, Cain, the first child of Adam and Eve, showed that he was a child of the devil when he murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4:3-8).  Brotherly love meant nothing to him because he bitterly resented God's favour to his younger brother.  Instead of humbly asking Abel to help him please God, Cain was angry and jealous that Abel enjoyed God's love.  The anger overflowed into hatred and murder.  Nothing inflames evil quite as much as somebody else displaying obedient love towards God, which is the evidence of righteousness.

Two principles emerge from this.  Firstly, that God's children should love each other: it is their spiritually genetic nature.  They should not resent God's favour to another believer, or hate those whom God has sealed by His Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).  Secondly, we should not be surprised when the world hates the people who love Jesus (John 15:18-19; 1 Peter 4:12-14).  It is normal for the world to hate Jesus and the family of God - whether that hatred is expressed in violence, exclusion or indifference.

God designed us to be loved, and to love; and so it is always painful to be hated, or for our love to be rejected.  Every time we look to the world to love us, we will be disappointed unless we agree with them to dethrone Jesus.  We do not need to be aggressive in sharing the gospel in order to get a negative response; the love that we receive from God, and exude to others, is sufficient to stir the world against us.  But we are called to live and speak the truth because we share God's love for the people who are trapped in worldly ideology or Christless religion – even though they hate us for it.  Without receiving His love they are lost forever.  So, whatever it costs, keep loving for Christ's sake.