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When Jesus said, "This is how they will know you are my disciples; by the way that you love one another..." (John 13: 34-35) He wasn't joking.
He wasn't exaggerating, grand-standing, or suggesting.
In verse 34 it is clearly stated that this is a commandment. In the Greek, Jesus is giving a command to those who are his disciples that they are to "continually love" one another.
The Greek language brings to life verse 35 where Jesus underscores this by stating, "By this all men will know that you are MY disciples if you [continually have] love for one another."
During Desert Storm I asked a fellow Army Sergeant why he didn't attend church. My Puerto Rican friend proceeded to tell me the tale of the small village where he grew up. The town drunk and the town priest were one and the same. What he said next has never left me: "I would be a Christian, if I ever saw that it made a difference in anybody's life..."
As Jesus continues his train-of-thought through the gospel of John, we hear him say, "...My father is glorified by this: that you [are always bearing] much fruit and so prove to be my disciples."
The Barna Research Group and similar resources keep trying to tell the church that it has something between its teeth when it smiles. But Christians refuse to hear it. The ethical and moral crises of North America isn't about people being less religious. It is about Christians who think that having a right doctrine is the same as being "in Christ."
The problem is not outside the church, but inside. Christianity has lost its influence in the marketplace of ideas because it has lost control of itself. It is so busy cataloging the vices of the general culture that it has neglected to develop the virtues within the faith culture.
Whether one has affinity or animosity toward the Christian Church or the Christian faith, it must be considered where the Church has succeeded in spite of its many failures. In fact, many secular organizations attack the issues of injustice, starvation, poverty, value-of-life, and environmental concerns with all the fiery passion of prophets and ancient evangelists. These secular moralists have done a much better job than the church in convincing us, as of late, for instance, that we must treat the body like a temple and to shun smoking and the destructive quality of drunkenness, among many other surface symptoms for a lack of wholeness. In essence, the church has preached itself out of a pulpit. Do we have anything else to say? Do Christians bring anything significant to the table?
Only if we resurrect John Wesley's discovery.
And we must remember that it was not his invention but only his discovery. John Wesley was deeply affected by the writings of the apostle John. The apostle John wrote in what is his first letter included in the New Testament (in chapter 4) that "God is love and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also we are in this present world..."
He's talking about abiding. He's talking about an in-dwelling. This is not a God "out there" who is way up there and expecting me to hop up and down in an attempt to get at His level... until He finally is convinced that I get the point -- that I can't be where He is -- and throws down a rope at my death and brings me up to Him into "glorification."
This is a statement. God wants to be one with us. He wants to "co-exist" with us. This is how we are changed. This is how we love others like He loves everyone. Love is made complete-- fulfilled--"perfect" through this union of God and the individual.
This is the message that the Christian faith still has to offer. That there is a way for us to be unified, compassionate, peaceful, respectful -- beyond ourselves. That we can intentionally and without hypocrisy genuinely respond and purposely act in ways that encourage, benefit and love others even to the point of denying ourselves.
We can do this sometimes in our own power--by our own discipline or will power. But this "abiding"; this "in-dwelling" means that it is possible to "always be bearing..." to "continually have" this... to "continually love" one another as a rule not as an exception.
The statment is that this is the expectation for the believer-- all believers; that this is the evidence that provides gives assurance of our salvation; that we are, in fact, to be "as HE IS, in "this present world."
We have something in our teeth when we smile. In the church, we attack one another motivated by fear-- by anger-- by disappointment... It doesn't make any difference what we believe or how correct our doctrines might be....Until we begin to live in the experience of what we teach, no one will take us seriously. No one will believe that Jesus has anything important to say or significant to offer. To be a witness for Jesus Christ is not to memorize and communicate spiritual laws but to live as Jesus lived in continual obedience to the will of the Heavenly Father. This is the only way that it can be seen that Christianity has "made a difference" in anybody's life. We honor our teacher--our rabbi-- by being what He is: thought, word and deed.
Unless we respond to the sirens of revival and reform--embracing the experience of Holy Spirit cleansing and renewal-- the world will not know we are His disciples. The church will not be known by the personality and the power of Jesus Christ. Tragically, the reverse has become true.
The world does not recognize Christians by their similarity to Jesus. Rather, Jesus has been forgotten. And the only impression the world has of Jesus is what is reflected in His believers.
Holiness, as explained in the Bible, is the one characteristic of God that cannot be trained into the human psyche. It can only be accomplished by the union of the Spirit of God with the individual for the benefit of humanity and the preservation of the earth.
"This I command you, that you love one another." Jesus Christ (John 15:17) |
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| To add a comment to "Xn" |
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| May 30, 2008 |
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| Amen brother! Excellent post! |
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| May 31, 2008 |
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So are you saying that when I stand before God he will be most interested in how I loved Him, loved others, made disciples, and taught them to love Him…love others…make disciples? If this is the Jesus model doesn’t it radically change what we should be doing? How? |
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| May 31, 2008 |
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How does this radically change what we are (or should be) doing? I could answer in superlatives: Stop building buildings and make disciples!
But that is unhelpful at the individual level.
What does this "love" look like? How do I know if I am fulfilling the will of the Father? Am I loving enough, often enough, deeply enough, unconditionally enough?
Of course, this is the beauty of this "love" being the work of God's grace in and through me. If I am "doing" or "trying" it probably is not sourced in His Spirit or brought on by and through His grace. It must be a state of "being".
My response to need-- to sickness-- to weakness-- to oppression-- to injustice-- to that which is unethical or immoral--- both in my own life and the world around me-- must be and will become instinctive; a reaction; a response motivated by the influence and the union of the Spirit of God in fellowship (koinonia in the Greek, see 1 John) with me.
How will I change? What breaks God's heart will break my heart. What makes God angry will make me angry. What moves God to action -- to loving response-- will move me.
The greatest symptom of the cancer of carnality in the church is the indifference-- the unresponsiveness. "God's people" unmoved by the things that move God.
Recently, a friend of mine who works as a physical therapist had an epiphany. An unresponsive limb on the body becomes not only weak but a burden on the body-- literally "more than useless". If we, together, make up the "body of Christ" and each of us is a part of the whole. What does this mean if we are unresponsive to the will and movement of God?
The same "love" that moved God to rescue-redeem us is the same "love" that moves us. In being moved we are the expression of God's love in this world. When crisis and tragedy strike and the world says, "Where is/was God?" This is an indication of the failure of God's people to be in meaningful union with the will and mind and Spirit of God. Which is, in my opinion, the greater tragedy. The church is and must function as the expression of God and His love in the world. |
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