On Loving Others

 Greetings to  you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     John 13:34-35 says, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

     A number of Baptist  churches have a Sunday School class named, B.Y.K.O.T.A.  It is an acronym for Be ye kind one to another.  It is a good reminder of how one should behave themselves in regard to other believers in the church.  I have been in churches where just the opposite occurred and it was the actions of the class that bore the above name.  I have this problem in my own life where I am fearful that people don’t love me or even like me and much of that feeling is the result of business meetings that take place in the local church.  I have experienced more antagonism in the local church business meeting than anywhere else.  Oh, it might still be there, but it is jus not manifested as it is in the business meeting.

     Most people that I know are more prone to be happy when people around them show more love than hatred towards them.  The above passage is so important and probably one of the most neglected passages in the Bible.  It may be due to our own definition of love and how it affects our actions in the local church.  Pastor Randy Kochersperger once gave a definition of love that has stuck with me all these years.  It is, “Righteous acts to meet the needs of another.”  It is a definition of “agape” love which is used so often in the Scriptures and is  different from the “Phileo” love which is also mentioned frequently in the Bible.  The definition that is missing is the one that people assume is Biblical and is the definition of the “warm fuzzies” that a person gets with a person of the opposite sex.  How important is agape love?  The above passage?  It  goes on to say that “all men” will  know we are disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of the most honorable things to do and is often neglected by the people of the church.  How lovable were we when Christ died for us on the cross at Calvary?  The truth is according to Romans 5:8 that we were still “sinners” when Christ died for us. We were unlovable in our condition at that  time because of the sin, but Christ paid for it all while we were sinners.  That was the example of the supreme righteous act  to meet our own personal need and shows us just how much God loves us and so we ought to love others in that same way.   Praise God for His love towards us.  May we love others in that way.