Love Each Other

To be able to live the life of holiness we must love each other. “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5) Any person can carry a Bible. Almost anyone can sing a Christian song. Anyone can attend worship services. So how do we know if a person is a real Christian?(Now don’t give me that “Don’t judge stuff…) Jesus said the evidence of Christianity is this: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”(John 13:35)

John, who had followed Jesus during all of Jesus’ ministry wrote: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. EVERYONE WHO LOVES HAS BEEN BORN OF GOD and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love.”(1 John 4:7-8) Jesus’ new command was to, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.(John 13:34) Do we really love everyone who is here with us today in this service?

IV. IF WE LOVE EACH OTHER, WE ARE EXPRESSING GOD’S NATURE.

Time and time again, throughout the Bible we see that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) When we invite Jesus into our hearts, his Holy Spirit puts God’s nature into us. We become His children. Could we say, we get some of His DNA? We become children of the King.

The Apostle Peter, who had also spent three years or more with Jesus, and had been forgiven by Jesus wrote: “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.”(1 Peter 1:22 & 23) Do we love everyone who comes through the doors of our church “deeply, from the heart?”

I can remember a time while I was a young and poor college student of being invited to preach at a church without a pastor. I was to preach and my wife was to sing in the morning worship service and also in the evening service. I was about eighty miles from home. After the service all of the congregation thanked me and many said, “We will see you tonight.” One young single parent came up to my wife and me and said:

“You will need to eat and to rest before tonight. I don’t have much, but please come to my apartment for the afternoon.” When she searched her cupboards all that she could find to feed us was about one half pound of cheese slices and some macaroni, from which she made a small pan of macaroni and cheese, which she served with glasses of ice water to her son, my wife, to me, and then to herself. I’ll tell you, that was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. She shared her best. She had little but love to share. My wife and I understood, because a short time before, we had some out of work and newly wed college friends, who had been living on tomato soup and crackers, over to our apartment several times for dinner. We did not have much, but God blessed them and us as we cared enough to love and to share.

CONCLUSION

How are you sharing God’s love with our congregation? Are you aware of those who are lonely? Those who are in need? Those who need a hug or a handshake, a card or a phone call. What is the old saying? “Blood is thicker than water.” The church is joined together through the blood of Jesus. We must never gossip about our forever family. We must not grumble about these forever friends. Hey, they may just be our next door neighbors in Heaven. We must not take advantage of them. We must realize that we are no better than they are. We must not put them down and make excuses for our own shortcomings, our own sins.(Ever heard the saying, “For him they are sins; but for me they are frailties of the flesh?”) We must be sensitive to their pains, fears, disappointments, setbacks, losses… At times love will lovingly confront the wayward. At other times love will forgive a multitude of sins. James wrote: “Remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”(James 5:20) I remember one evangelist who told me that one day he had preached on the gifts of the Spirit, and one lady came up to him after the service and told him that she had the “gift of criticism.” And she meant it. And she did it all the time.(I am sure she did not read that in the Bible… Maybe in a comic book…)