The Beloved Disciple's First Letter - Pt 13

 

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:11–15 ESV).

 

As I have mentioned before, one of my most vivid memories my first year at Texas A&M was entering the Memorial Student Center for the first time and seeing a bronze plaque just inside the door quoting John 15:12-13: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” As the building has been expanded with the growth of the university and its student population that plaque has been fixed to a granite memorial just outside the entrance (pictured here). You may glimpse the list of names beneath the plaque of the many who have served in the military and were students of Texas A&M with the dates of their death in defense of our freedom. It was a powerful reminder of the sacrifice that love often calls for.

 

The Apostle John is calling the believers in Ephesus to make such a sacrifice in the face of severe opposition and prejudice, He reminds us that is a choice, and yes, even a command, to express the love that we receive from our Lord. It is a choice to show others that we love in all circumstances. It is the choice to let our Lord live in and through us. This choice is empathy, seeking the best for all of the “one-anothers”. This choice to love is perhaps one of the main reasons that we have difficulty with the priorities that we have seen earlier in the epistle.

 

Of course, we mustn’t confuse loving one another with pleasing one another. This ‘loving one another’ is actually doing and being God’s will for one another. Since God lives in us, He expresses through us what is needed for others. We express to others the will and love of God for them. This would clearly include ‘tough love’ and would include saying ‘no’ as well as correction and expressing priorities.

 

This love also needs to start close to home and extend outward. It needs to start with the people we see daily. Our family, our neighbors, the barista, the grocer. We can express this far away, in generosity toward the various agencies and organizations that are serving God around the world. But the Lord was clear when he said to love our neighbor, it starts close to home.

 

How is your “love-life”?