2 John
"And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
Observation-What does it say?
Encouragement was given by John to a "chosen lady and her children" to walk in love. The definition of walking in love from the passage was to be in obedience to God's commands. Being in obedience to His commands also meant watching out for those who were teaching false doctrines.
Understanding-What does it mean?
Love is walking in obedience to His commands according to His Word.
Everything we do as Christ followers needs to be driven by the truth of His Word. There are a lot of false teachings/doctrines about who Christ is and what love is. According to this chapter, some false teachings were that Christ only rose as spirit, but not in physical body. If matched up against Scripture, this is false.
There is also a lot of false teachings about love. Love is portrayed in the media and the world (and has also creeped into our churches) as a butterflies in your stomach, happiness, heart racing, can't live without the other person feeling, but Scripture says otherwise. If love was a feeling, how would we be able to love our enemies? (Matt. 5:43-48) If love was a feeling, how would we be able to forgive? (Col. 3:13) According to Scripture, love is an action and a choice. (1 Cor. 13) Love is also discipline. (Hebrews 12:4-13)
Life Application
Read His Word daily and apply it.
We cannot recognize false doctrine if we do not know the Truth of God's Word. The enemy is great at deceiving us through well meaning resources such as Christian books and literature, and well meaning religions that teach about Jesus Christ and even claim to be Christian, but are not. Even some worship songs have an all about me tune to it and teach false doctrine. The enemy also deceives through our own feelings and emotions, where we compromise the Truth of God's Word because we are "in love."
The best way to recognize the counterfeit lies is to be so familiar with His Truth found in His Word, that we don't know otherwise. That's also how we recognize His voice/the Holy Spirit when He speaks to us.
Dear Lord, I pray that You would give us the desire to make it a daily discipline to be so familiar with Your Word and Your voice of Truth that we wouldn't know otherwise. Please protect us from the deception of the evil one and help us to seek and run hard after You alone. Amen.
Resource: gotquestions.org