On Third John

3 John is a small book near the back of the bible.
It is so small, in fact, that no one ever bothered to chop it up into chapters.
Contained within its 14 verses is a message of encouragement to a man, Gaius, who John was proud of for being so hospitable to christian travelers.
He also warns about another guy, Diotrephes, who made himself a church leader and goes about his job haughtily; he likes to run the show.
But was i was reading it last night, one verse stood out to me.
I looked all over for a commentary on it, but i didn't find a single one.
so i'm going to make my own.

3 John 1:11 states: "Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Anyone who does what is good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God."

Now, sure, this statement seems pretty logical.
Don't do bad things, do good things instead.

But here is where, when i read a single sentence, i sat up and had to think for a while:
"Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God."

Think about the elegant simplicity of that message.
We are surrounded by a world that is entrenched in evil and evildoings.
And in the midst of that, John tells us that anyone who has 'seen' God is incapable of doing evil.
Perhaps not physically incapable, but unwilling enough to make it to that point.
He's saying that God is so good, anyone who still does evil hasn't seen what he can do; his love; his devotion; his grace.

This is a tremendously encouraging idea.
It implies that all we need to do is be a light to people, to show them what God's love can really do, and anyone who truly understands it will want to have nothing to do with how they used to live their life.