"ABLE"

You Are a Child of God -- and You Are Able

There is a moment in the story of Cain and Abel that most people rush past. Everyone remembers the tragedy -- the jealousy, the murder, the first act of violence recorded in Scripture. But tucked inside that ancient story is something that speaks directly to us today. When the writer of 1 John references Cain and Abel in 1 John 3, the point is not simply "do not be like Cain." The point is far more powerful than that.

The point is this: you are Abel.

Not just Abel the person, but able -- endowed with the capacity, the calling, the God-given ability to love. And that ability does not come from willpower or good intentions. It comes with the name.

A Name That Changes Everything

In 1 John 3, the apostle marvels at the idea that we are called children of God -- and not just called that, but that we actually are that. In the first century, that declaration was nothing short of revolutionary. The title "child of God" was reserved for emperors and rulers. For a slave, a woman, a person of low social standing to carry that name was an act of profound defiance against every power structure of the age.

But here is what is easy to miss: the name does not come alone. With the name comes an endowment. With the name comes ability. When God calls you His child, He does not simply hand you a title and send you on your way. He deposits something inside of you -- a Holy Spirit-driven capacity to love the way Jesus loved, to represent the love of God in a world that is often cold and indifferent to it.

A Lineage of the Able

Consider the genealogy of love that runs through Scripture like a thread of gold.

Rahab was a woman living on the margins of society in Jericho, known for a profession that would have made most religious people cross the street to avoid her. Yet when two Israelite spies came to her door, she hid them, protected them, and made a bold declaration: your God will be my God. She was not born into the right family. She did not have the right credentials. But she had the ability to act with courage and love when it mattered most.

Hebrews 11 places her name in the hall of faith alongside Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Matthew 1:5 places her name in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

Her son was Boaz -- a man who had watched his parents navigate the scrutiny and ridicule that came with loving across cultural and racial lines. Because of what he had seen modeled, he had the ability to look at Ruth, a Moabite woman and an outsider by every social standard, and see not a stranger but a person made in the image of God. He saw her humanity. He loved her without apology. And from that union came Obed, then Jesse, then David -- the greatest king in Israel's history, and an ancestor of Jesus Himself.

Be careful who you dismiss. Be careful who you judge. The person the world calls unworthy may be carrying a legacy of faith that will echo through generations.

Love Is a Verb

It is one thing to carry a name. It is another thing entirely to live it out.

In Luke 10, a lawyer approaches Jesus with a question designed to find a loophole: "Who is my neighbor?" What he was really asking was simpler and more unsettling -- who do I get to ignore? Jesus responds not with a rule but with a story. A man is beaten and left for dead on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Two religious leaders, men who knew the law inside and out, pass by on the other side. Their religious obligations, they reasoned, outweighed the bleeding man in front of them.

Then a Samaritan -- the enemy, the outsider, the one the crowd would have booed at the mention of his name -- stops. He bandages the wounds. He pays for the man's care. He does not ask whether the man deserves it. He simply loves.

Jesus turns to the lawyer and asks which of the three was a neighbor. The lawyer cannot even bring himself to say "the Samaritan." He says, "The one who showed mercy." Jesus says, go and do likewise.

Love is not a feeling to be managed. It is not a sentiment to be expressed on occasion. It is action. It is showing up. It is scooping a meal for someone who is hungry, sitting with someone who is lonely, seeing the humanity in the person the world has written off. The ability that comes with the name of God's child is meaningless unless it moves from potential into practice.

When Your Own Heart Condemns You

There is one more dimension to this passage that is easy to overlook. 1 John 3 closes with a word about the times when our own hearts condemn us -- when our wounds and our fears and our failures cause us to shrink back from the very love we are called to give and receive.

Every person carries rooms inside them they would rather not revisit. Rooms where old pain lives. Rooms where the voice of shame speaks louder than the voice of grace. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus does not stand outside those rooms. He walks into them with us. He meets us in the worst moments of our histories and speaks truth where lies have taken root.

The assurance that comes with the name and the ability is this: you have never been abandoned by the God who made you. You have been loved unconditionally from the beginning. And that love is not diminished by your wounds, your failures, or your doubts.

Go and Live Likewise

You are a child of God. That is your name. And with that name comes the ability -- the Spirit-empowered, lineage-tested, cross-confirmed ability -- to love this world the way it desperately needs to be loved.

The city around you is waiting. Someone is waiting for your name and your ability to show up in their life the way Rahab showed up, the way Boaz showed up, the way the Samaritan showed up.

You are able. Now go and live like it.