SOME PEOPLE ARE supremely confident — perhaps a little too much so, believing in their obvious strengths but blind to their weaknesses. Some people are the opposite, ever conscious of their weaknesses but unable to recognize their strengths. And most of us are somewhere between those extremes, vacillating from day to day and even from situation to situation.

Moreover, wherever we find ourselves on that spectrum, what do we do with the voice of conscience? Jesus, on the one hand, seemed constantly attuned to the Father, obedient to the last. We, on the other hand… well, let’s just say we’re not usually dialed in at quite the same level. Thankfully, after his death, Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide. But for many of us, it’s not easy sorting out the whispering of our conscience and the prompting of the Spirit from all the other voices that may clamor for attention in our heads.

There may be the voice of shame: You are unworthy. You are not enough. You can never be enough. There may be the voice of guilt: Remember what you did the other day? Remember what you failed to do? And all of this can fuel the doubts we already have about ourselves: Am I really who I say I am? Do I really get to call myself a Christian, a believer, a follower of Christ?

AS WE’VE SEEN, John was writing into a difficult situation. The community had split along theological lines and some people had broken off, leaving chaos and uncertainty in their wake. John wrote to encourage the people who were left, and did so with some pretty stark language. Indeed, his words make me a little uncomfortable, because I know what people can do with such language, dividing the social world into a self-righteous “us” versus a wicked, obstinate “them.”

What softens John’s language is his insistence on obedience to Jesus’ command to love. We have passed from death to life, John says, and the evidence is love. Jesus himself made the ultimate loving sacrifice, so we too should love sacrificially — otherwise we’re still spiritually dead. Love isn’t just a feeling, the apostle insists. It’s shown by what we do, particularly toward those in need. So if you see a brother or sister in need, and have the means to do something about it, but don’t take pity on them, are you really living in love? Are you walking in the light? Is God’s love really living in you?

Let’s be honest: we can agree with what John says and feel intimidated by it at the same time. After all, who among us hasn’t seen a need and turned away? And even when we don’t turn away, meeting the needs of others can be never-ending and exhaustingly unpredictable.

The reality is that we live in a deeply broken world racked by war, poverty, and injustice. It’s not just what we see on the evening news, but what we see in our neighborhoods, our families, our congregations. The needs are both physical and emotional. They’re everywhere, if we dare to look — including inside ourselves.

Maybe that’s too depressing a thing to say? My apologies. But I want us to be in the right frame of mind to receive what John says next:

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. (1 John 3:19-22, NIV)

That’s the New International Version. There’s some ambiguity to John’s Greek, so if you read the passage in another translation, you may get something different.

But if we read between the lines a little, if we imagine the situation John is trying to address as a loving pastor, we can hear echoes of the doubt and uncertainty swirling in the community. People’s hearts are not “at rest.” People are struggling with self-condemnation.

Again, some who had been the people’s friends and neighbors had tried to push heretical views on them. It’s easy to imagine the tension and conflict over who had it right, who the true believers were. John’s letter tries to set that straight. So, if we adopt the language he uses in verse 19, how can we know that we “belong to the truth”? How can we know that we belong to the real gospel?

He’s just said it: we love not just with words, but in our deeds.

But that may not be enough to calm people’s doubts. Indeed, depending on our mindset, it could exacerbate them. Put yourself in their shoes. Okay, I get it, we might think, love is the criterion. The authenticity of our faith, the sign of the gospel in us is our loving action toward those in need. But John makes Jesus our example. He actually died in the name of love. That’s certainly not me! Heck, I get annoyed if I even have to go out of my way for someone else’s sake. What’s wrong with me? Do I really measure up? Am I really a Christian? Do I really have the Holy Spirit?

Does any of that sound familiar?

Calm down, beloved, John seems to say. First of all, God knows everything, right? That means that God also knows your heart, better than you know yourself. Moreover, God is greater than our hearts. That’s the basis of our confidence before God, not our own self-evaluation.

The gist of John’s words, taken together with everything he’s already said in the letter, is that our own self-condemnation is not the full truth of who we are in God’s sight. Indeed, as Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” If there were no love in us, we wouldn’t necessarily lash out at those in need. We just wouldn’t care. The fact that we are conscience-stricken about our lack of love can itself be a good sign of the gospel at work in us.

To see the perfection of Jesus is to have our own imperfection magnified. Our love seems so small in comparison, so timid, so weak. God knows this. Our confidence before God is not grounded in self-confidence but God-confidence, a trust in his goodness and grace, a trust that God is indeed who the crucified Jesus revealed him to be.

It’s not that what our hearts tell us doesn’t matter. It does.

But God is greater than our hearts. Our hearts don’t get the last word. God does.

And that word…is love.