“Beloved, do not
imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but
he who does evil has not seen God” (3
John 11; NKJV).
We are to do good, to imitate good, because God is
good. Evil is not of God. Evil is of the Devil. As the
children of God we are to imitate our Father by doing good.
Diotrephes was not of God.
He was concerned with things that are not of God: preeminence among
brethren, not receiving brethren, prating against brethren with malicious
words, forbidding others to receive brethren (3 John 9-10). Diotrephes
was of his father the Devil: “You are of your father the devil, and the
desires of your father you want to do.
He was a murderer and a liar from the beginning, and does not stand in
the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar
and the father of it” (John 8:44; NKJV).
Demetrius had “a good testimony from all, and from the
truth itself” (3 John 12). Demetrius
had a good testimony because he imitated God.
What about me? Do I
imitate my good God or do I imitate the evil one? Let us see God and
imitate what we see for “he who does evil
has not seen God” (3 John 11).
