Love One Another

God’s limitless, covenantal, and eternal love for humankind is the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Through love, the gospel accomplishes what the Law was unable to do.  It demonstrates God’s steadfast love, faithfulness and mercy which comprise the basis for His forgiveness of humankind.  He creates us in His image.  God provides a perfect setting in the Garden of Eden where we may commune with Him.  Ideally, we reflect His love and goodness. 

However, human pride, disobedience and infidelity corrupt His divine plan.  Accordingly, God’s love demands humankind faces the consequences of sin.  Whereas God expels humankind from the Garden of Eden, His love yields forgiveness and mercy, allowing restoration of an ideal relationship between Creator and creature.  John, the evangelist of love, inimitably summarizes the magnanimity of God’s love for humankind.  “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, commands all disciples to emulate God’s love.  In the defining charter for Christians, individually, and the Church, collectively, Jesus determines love is the distinguishing characteristic of His followers.  “A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

The eloquent simplicity of that command cloaks its difficulty.  It is extremely easy to recite those verses.  In fact, we do so on automatic pilot, particularly in a Bible study setting.  Yet, we face daily challenges in living those verses.  How do we love our brothers and sisters who irk us?  What about the ones who get on our very last nerves?  There are those whose profession of faith and practice of lifestyle contradict each other.  There are also those who mistake the years of their human life with spiritual maturity and wisdom; the two definitely do not correlate.  What about the “know-it-alls” in our midst?  Then, there are those to whom we give positions of leadership and they lack the requisite faithfulness to serve.  Additionally, we have persons who linger in various sins without any apparent desire to overcome them.  We cannot miss the self-righteous brother and sanctimonious sister who insist he or she just left the presence of God.  Lastly, there are the half-hearted Jacks and Janes of all trades and masters of none who impose their “considered” opinion on the Church.  Nonetheless, Jesus commands us to love the foregoing people despite the depth of this challenge.

The least common denominator amongst these persons is brokenness.  We love people who are still very incomplete, even though they seemingly ignore their predicament.  In some instances, we are more aware of their problems than they are.  That fact, however, does not permit us to dismiss them until they find healing and wholeness.  Ironically, the love we demonstrate toward them is a critical part of their healing process.  We love them until they learn to love themselves.  The lack of self-acceptance causes the extreme brokenness of many people in the Church. 

Perhaps, they are unaware of the many ways in which they offend people.  Their brokenness partially stems from an incomplete understanding of God’s love.  As they are ignorant concerning God’s love for them, they cannot love themselves.  As a result, they are incapable of loving others.  But, they can obtain healing knowledge of God’s love when disciples freely demonstrate it. 

Accordingly, we resist the temptation to demonize these broken people.  Easily, we label them as bad people.  Naturally, we avoid them and wish they would leave the fellowship.  Surprisingly, Jesus says we need these broken people more than we readily realize.  Rather than hindering our walk with the Lord, the broken persons in our church family grace us with the opportunity to fully actualize God’s love in Christ Jesus.  Furthermore, the great apostle of love, John, insists we cannot love God whom we have never seen and hate our brother or sister whom we see daily.  (1 John 4:4-21)  Broken persons do not deserve our wrath and indifference.  Instead, they should be the primary recipients of our consideration and forgiveness.