By Their Love

You will know them by their love!!  Jesus demonstrated this truth and displayed it openly for the whole world to see.  When Jesus walked the earth, thousands of people knew about Him.  They not only heard His word, but many were set free by Him, many were healed and also fed and they also experienced His many miracles and His acts of love.  If that wasn’t enough they experienced His ultimate act of love, when Jesus carried their cross and was crucified on it for their sins and ours; a man who had no sin became sin for us, the ultimate act of love that only He could have allowed Himself to experience.

God’s Word says this in John 15:12-13, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”

We may never be called to die for someone, but we are called to genuinely love people and especially those who are in the faith.  True love is the only thing that binds people together and truly sets them free.  The word love is thrown around flippantly, but I wonder how many people know what that word really means, or has it just become a habit and many people say it just to try to make others feel good.  I know it is easy to let it slip out and not really mean it at all because I have been guilty of this myself.  

What are the characteristics of love?  This is what God’s Word says in 1 Corinthians 13:1-7, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

I don’t think this kind of love can be possible unless a person has a genuine experience with God, called an intimate relationship, which happens at rebirth.  This kind of love includes all people, even your enemies, and demonstrating it is the only way we will ever be able to experience true acceptance and true forgiveness for those who offend us and from those we have offended.

First Peter 4:8 says this, “And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’”

Also read 1 Peter 1:22-25: “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.”

Love is an action word, love reaches out to others in tangible ways, and it will always cost you something.  It may even cause you to be taken advantage of.  You will have to sacrifice at times, it can even rob you of sleep, time and convenience and even finances, but in the end you will think it is worth it.  One thing most people are looking for is love.  In light of this, how do you measure up?  Something to think about!  Have a super day and may God bless you and yours!!