This first letter of John, inseparable from his Gospel, reminds us that the Christian way is nothing less than a divinization: our own.
John affirms in this first letter: If you have the Son of God you have total truth, you are on the way to authentic love and you are in communion with God himself.
However, perhaps, we are deceiving ourselves when we pretend to be in Christ. This is why John specifies the criteria, the conditions enabling us to verify if we are truly walking in the light and living in Love:
In Christ we recognize God himself; yet we must always remember to interiorize his actions, his mission, his way of being human.
We believe we have been reborn from God: that does not mean that we are above his commandments, nor that we should neglect daily efforts to be worthy of him.
Faith has renewed our knowledge of God. What matters most is to understand his love and, for that, there is no better teaching than that of the cross.
NOTE: excerpted from the introductory material for this book.
