Love One To Another

John 13: ³⁴ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
³⁵ By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

This is one of the most simple and straight forward commands one can find in the bible.  It does not get much simpler than that.    Yet, despite its simplicity and common knowledge in the Christian world, it seems that many have the hardest time following this simple command.

Christians get along with each other when the subject is, do you love Jesus?  Everyone is like, Oh, yes…  Praise the Lord…  Hallelujah.  But you bring up certain subjects, and Christians are at each other’s throats. Quickly it devolves into name calling and accusations of lying and being a false teacher sent from the devil to destroy Christianity.  
 

Unbelievers see this and they instinctively know that this is not what Jesus commanded of his followers.  Atheists sit and laugh at the hypocrisy of Christians verbally beating the snot out of one another.  Christians acting in this manner destroy the witness of Christ.  
 

Paul tells us that even though we may have differences in our practices, we need to respect those differences and not offend one another.  (Romans 14).  What we eat and drink or not, what days we keep or not, how we dress, and many other things that we may do differently are not of any import, except to the person who holds them.  Love them, respect them, and do not offend them.  They are your brothers and sisters in faith.


There are bigger issues that do arise and are ones that certainly deal with false doctrines.  These too need to be met with love, not vitriol.  We need not insult, demean, and belittle, others in defense of the gospel.  Don’t let your own pride get involved.  Use the word with love to correct another.  Stay calm and clear when discussing matters.  We ourselves don’t know if we are dealing with a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a brother who has been misled.  Let the Holy Spirit do the work.


Ephesians 4: ²⁹ Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
 

Finally, if a person is not willing to listen to sound instruction, move on.  There really is no reason to sit there and argue with a brick wall for an extended amount of time. Luke 9:5   and whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.  
 

People want to be loved.  If they see Christians acting in love one toward another as Christ commanded us, they will want to be a part of that.  They want to see something different from the world of strife they live in.  We should be that light shining the love of God.