Food for Friday
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 1 John 3:11
I have a relative who spends far too much time talking about how we should be loving one another. She frequently posts platitudes about it on the Internet, and brings the subject up every time she is with friends or family. So what’s wrong with that? There would be nothing wrong with that if her actions matched her words. But they don’t. She constantly belittles others around her, flaunting her social and intellectual superiority. She mocks her neighbours and does little or nothing to help the needy in the community. She alienates many people by pointing out their flaws and comparing them to her own ‘qualities’. She is not a good example of how we should love one another. But we do have good examples to follow, none of them better than our Lord.
John speaks here of hearing this from the beginning. He is speaking of course of the beginning of the presentation of the Gospel. Loving one another was not the message of Judaism, which stressed rigid adherence to laws and rituals. Nor was it the message of the heathen religions that were steeped in brutality and immorality. But the Gospel came with the message of love. First of all was the display and announcement of God’s great love for us in the Person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself told Nicodemus that the manifestation of God so loving the world was His giving of His Son (John 3:16). Lovingly, the Lord Jesus gathered humble men about Him to make them into apostles. Lovingly, He taught the people and performed thousands of miracles of healing, comforting, and feeding. Lovingly, He endured rejection, shame, and torture as He bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24). Our Saviour did not only teach His disciples and His other followers to love one another, He also showed them how, including the great lesson that love does not have limits or partiality.
The disciples and other followers of the Lord Jesus learned their lesson well. In the early days of the book of Acts, we see the generosity and sharing of Christians, many of whom sold their possessions to help pay for food and comforts for the other Christians around them. And it did not end there. Down through the centuries, the hallmark of true Christians has been the love they have shown to one another, and the extent to which they have been willing to go to display that love. This has been a wonderful witness to the love of God as a stark contrast to the world around us that loves to talk about loving one another but in reality shows they have neither the interest or power to live up to their words.
Loving one another is not something to talk about; it is something to live as the leading passion of our daily lives. -Jim MacIntosh