We express our love by keeping the commandments, which, in turn constitutes victory over the forces of evil that are in the world. Faith, therefore, and its consequences lead to overcoming everything that might stand in the way of God's love for His faithful. The object of this faith is Jesus, both divine and human, who really died a real human death. The benefits of His saving death are offered to us in the Holy Spirit through the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. The fundamental point of this reading, and perhaps of the whole of First John, is that faith has implications.
Faith has consequences.
Faith is not merely the theoretical acceptance of a series of theoretical truths about God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Faith is not merely signing on to the conclusions of a course in dogmatic theology. Faith involves personal commitment to a person, Jesus Christ. This commitment brings with it relationships with God the Father and with the Holy Spirit. Because the person of Jesus had a human nature and a human history yet is a divine person, commitment to Him means that we relate to the world and its history in a different way than we would if God had remained distant and unknowable.