Jesus told His disciples in John 13:34-35, that He was giving them a new commandment: To love one another like He had loved them, but He also said something else. He said that “all will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” If love proves that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ, how do we put God’s love in action to show the world who Jesus really is?
Unfortunately, there’s a growing sentiment in America that Christians are hateful and bigoted due to their stances on political issues, which I’m not going to debate or cover in this blog post. Ultimately, as Christians, our final authority needs to be the word of God. When Jesus said that the world will you know by how we love one another, He meant it. Too many churches have lost sight of the mission of the church and are consumed with in-fighting to the point that they’re on the verge of not existing anymore.
Here’s a challenge: Go through the Book of Acts sometime and read how the early church operated. They weren’t corporations that had a pastor as a CEO. It was a connected body of believers meeting the needs for people in their area and worshipping and teaching the gospel in truth. We’ve distorted it in America these days and we think we need the best lighting, the best microphones, a quality livestream, a full-time salary for a plethora of church staff, etc. Those things are all awesome and helpful for ministries, but they’re luxuries, not necessities. The one phrase that pops up in the early church in Acts is “with one accord.” There was unity in the body of Christ and today, that unity has faded and the universal church can’t even agree on the core tenants of the faith!
If we want to see a positive impact on our communities and ultimately in this country and we want to see more people coming to Christ, then we have to learn to love like Jesus loved. My favorite example of this is in John 8: 1-12. I recently did a podcast on this passage that you can listen to on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. The religious leaders bring to Jesus a woman caught in the act of adultery, trying to test Him, and see what His response would be. Jesus listens, stoops down, writes something on the ground and then says, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” Then He writes something else on the ground and the Lord has shown me this little phrase recently that explains it all in verse 9: “Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.”
They were convicted by their conscience realizing that even though they hadn’t committed her sin, they had committed a sin and thus they had no right to be her judge. So many Christians today would have been lobbing a stone at her head as Jesus spoke. 1 Corinthians 13:1 says, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” It doesn’t matter what gifts you have, what answers you have to everyday struggles, or what gospel you’re sharing. Paul is saying if you do it without love, you’re nothing more than clanging cymbal and that’s what many Christians are today and that’s why Christians haven’t been able to positively influence culture. We share the Facebook post or the reel that targets particular sins, we record the Tik Tok that uses scripture as a weapon to attack others for their sin, and we fail to love and listen to others. Remember, Jesus ate with the tax collectors and the sinners. He went to them, He didn’t wait for them to come to Him. But also remember: He wasn’t influenced by them and they weren’t His inner circle.
One of my favorite passages is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11: “9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.”
There’s a lot of sins listed there, probably sins that you yourself have committed (I know I have!). But notice verse 11: And such were some of you. Sometimes as Christians, we forgot where we’ve come from and what drove us to Christ. We’re not better than anyone – we all need salvation through Jesus Christ or we’re in trouble too. We expect those who aren’t Christians to understand spiritual things, but that’s impossible (1 Corinthians 2:14). They’re doing what they should be doing: Living for the things of the world, standing for things opposite of God’s Word, and sinning. But are we as Christians doing what we should be doing and loving others as Jesus loved us? We have to put God’s love into action and put it on display for everyone to see. Not as a show, but genuinely so that others will see the difference in a life lived for Christ and one that is in danger of eternal punishment hell. That’s the reality and those are the stakes.
Let me leave you with this: It’s time to be accountable for what we’re doing. We all mess up, we all do things we’re not proud of, but we have to be realistic with ourselves. If you’ve been guilty of being judgemental, hateful, and just not loving to other believers in your church, then it’s time to repent and stop doing it. The story of Jesus and the woman caught in the act of adultery shows just that. Does Jesus tell her to go back to what she was doing after receiving His grace and mercy? Not at all. In verse 11, He tells her to go and sin no more. Once you ask the Lord to forgive you of your behavior, go and don’t do it anymore. Show the love of Christ that proves to the world that we belong to Him. Put God’s love into action.
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