Love casts out hatred

If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers. (I John 4:20-21 NLT)

Do we love our fellow believers? There are always going to be individuals in our path that just don't exude all those 'lovable' qualities we'd like to see someone have, aren't there? We might think we are doing a pretty good job at 'loving' others until we actually hear that voice in our heads that begins to complain about that one who just doesn't make it easy to love them. As soon as we hear them, see them, or hear what they are up to right now, we begin to hear that internal conversation we have about how 'odd' they are, or how 'un' this or that. In truth, we are having a hard time looking past their idiosyncrasies, aren't we? Does God see those idiosyncrasies and love them? Does he ask us to look beyond them, as well? Yup, he even commands it!

In other translations, this reads 'brethren' or 'brothers'. It goes beyond our 'fellow believers' to all our neighbors, believers and non-believers alike. In truth, we can only 'love one another' because Christ dwells within us. His love resident within is what transcends all 'lines'. We cannot love as Christ loves his church until we realize love isn't just a feeling. We have lots of feelings toward one another, not all of them as 'wholesome' as they should be. We must allow the love that embraced us in Christ Jesus to be the same love by which we embrace those who don't even share our similar beliefs. In the time John penned these words, there was great division in the church. His challenge to the New Testament believers was to begin to breakdown the walls of division between Jew and Gentile by allowing the love of Christ that indwelt them to be the guiding principle by which they live amongst one another.

Throughout generation after generation, hatred has been allowed to creep in toward certain 'groups', 'ethnicities', or 'peoples'. As I have frequently said, what one generation allows will become the norm of the next. We must return to the principal truth of love. If we are to love God, we must first love one another. If we are to love as God does, we must not compromise our beliefs, but we must love our brothers! Loving as God loves doesn't mean we embrace the sin - it means we embrace the sinner and pray for their salvation. Christ came for the lost - among our brothers, there could be many who are lost. Love them as he did and we may just see a changed world. Just sayin!