"Owe no one anything, except to love each other…" - Romans 13:8
Of all the “love” topics that we could talk about, I believe that today’s discussion is one of the most overlooked—yet most vital—topics for the testimony of Christ's church.
How do you feel when it comes to sharing the gospel with the lost? Many Christians are afraid to witness, while others thrill at the opportunity to tell others of the Savior. Some will loudly declare their faith to anyone who gives them the time of day, while still others are certain that "lifestyle evangelism," wherein we lead good and wholesome lives, will be enough to bring the lost to Christ. The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle, but I know of nothing so powerful to our witness as the way we believers behave toward one another. A community of Christians who genuinely love and care for each other clearly marks them out as different from the world and will often draw the unsaved into community with them. Sadly, the opposite is also true: nothing will scare people away faster than a group of people who calls themselves Christ followers, yet engages in gossiping, backbiting, and outright fighting among themselves.
The Apostle John puts forward the ultimate example of love as a reason to love the brethren. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers” (1 John 3:16). And he goes on in the next chapter to admonish us that “whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:21). We who have tasted the love of God and who in fact have his Spirit residing in us should naturally (or perhaps, supernaturally!) be filled with His love for those who have that same Spirit in them.
In what ways will our love for each other manifest itself? Here are a few that I found in a quick survey of the New Testament:
It seems very easy for us to talk about loving the lost in order to show them Jesus; but Jesus Himself painted a different picture for us in John 13:34, when He said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” So how are we doing with this assignment? Do we find it easier to love the unsaved we meet than the family with whom we worship? Do we recognize and love in our brothers and sisters the same Holy Spirit that resides within our own hearts?
Please don’t get me wrong—sharing God’s love with the world around us is imperative for the believer, and we’ll be talking about that next week. But when we take the good news outside the walls of the church, they should already know us by the reputation we have for how we love and take care of each other.
Again, the words of the beloved apostle spell it out clearly for us: “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:21b).
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture used in "Joy in the Morning" is taken from the English Standard Version.
