“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 love one another.”—John 13: 34-35
“Make
sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each
other and to everyone else.”—1 Thessalonians 5:15
“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.”—1 Peter 1:22
“Dear
friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love
one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”—1 John
4:11-12 (God is shown through our love)
“Therefore
confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and
effective.” –James 5:16
“You,
my brothers, were called to be free. But
do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another
in love. The entire law can be summed
up in a single command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ If you keep on biting and devouring each
other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.”—Galatians 5:13-15
“And
let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”—Hebrews
10:24
To love everyone is a very hard command
but it is exactly what God tells us to do.
I’m currently working my way through the book Love One Another: The Importance and Power
of Christian Relationships (New Edition) by Gordon Ferguson and his second
chapter was defining how God expects us to love each other. His book is focused on how church members
should connect with each other and the chapter I just read was basically a lot
of Bible verses with very little explanation.
As you can see by the verses I wrote above, which were just some of the
fifty-six passages he focused on, all including “one another” or “each other,”
the Bible is pretty detailed on how church members are to interact with each
other. Ferguson split his fifty-six
Bible verses into three main ways we should interact with each other: in peace,
lovingly, and with encouragement.
Here are some of the highlights:
-----We should love each other as God loves
us because he loves us.
-----People can see God through our love of
everyone.
-----We should serve and challenge each
other instead of trying to hurt each other.
The verse I have a lot of trouble with is
James 5:16. Trying to love everyone
unconditionally and deeply is hard, I don’t know if I can manage that. Telling other people about my sins and
praying with others for myself is very odd to me. The non-denominational church I was a part of
talked about doing that and it made me nervous.
Telling people my flaws and sins that I’m ashamed of would make me
vulnerable and possibly change their perception of me. I think that is why the confessional in the
Catholic Church is a closed box so only the priest can hear and maybe not see. (Kelly Clarkson has a song that perfectly
describes the natural fear of total vulnerability that I can’t resist sharing
here.) But Ferguson says there is no
greater gift than to let someone into your deepest emotions, hiding
nothing. I guess that is why dating and
marriage relationships are so amazing, because they should be that deep and
accepting despite total vulnerability. Having
that level of vulnerability is terrifying to me but seemed to be what the
non-denominational congregation expected from everyone in the church. It is definitely something I need to work on.
What do you think is the hardest part of
God’s command to love everyone as he loves us?
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