Do you love the Lord or are you simply being religious?

Mike makes a good point here, but this remains difficult to communicate.

“This love for one another is a description of our Christian fellowship. It is a consequence of being truly born of God. Those who claim to be Christians, but exclude the brethren who are not ecumenical, political, or liberal enough fail this test. With whom do we fellowship here? Is it all professing believers? No, it is those who are born of the same spirit as us. We can discern the apostasy and the disingenuousness in those who refuse to repent when they are confronted. No, that is not who John is talking about. We are to love and fellowship with God’s people, those born of the Spirit like us. They will reflect the same love as us and we will see it being manifest amongst us. Also, we will know those not born of this spirit who will have a huge problem with our walk on the narrow path of obedience rather than the broad way of tolerance and ecumenicalism. Those professing Christians who demand tolerance for the ways of the world and ecumenicalism we rebuke. We tell them the truth, but they prove through their worldliness and refusal to repent that they are disingenuous so we do not call them “brethren.””