I’m home sick this morning. Well, I’m working from home. I don’t know if I’m contagious or not (I have a viral infection in my throat), so I’ll be communicating via Zoom, phone calls, and other mediums. As I prepare for a Zoom meeting this morning, specifically to talk to a church in Georgia about what we’re doing here to try and bridge the denominational gap, it struck me hard; many of us forget the words of Christ, trading them in for “I will be known as a Christ follower by how I so viciously defend my doctrinal position.” There are brothers and sisters in Christ who SHOULD be united in the work of the Gospel. Instead, they are arguing over non-essentials, painting one another as apostate or heretical, when, in reality, their point of views may differ on minor issues, but they agree on the essentials.
Loved ones, Jesus said “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” –(John 13:34-35). Jesus didn’t say we are to be known by how well we know the Scriptures (we SHOULD know them well, or, at least, be seeking to know them!), nor is it by how well we can defend the faith (though we should always be ready to give a defense). It is not by how well we can speak, or argue, but by how we love one another. Love, and not the worldly, self-seeking forms of love, is the lynchpin that holds all of Scripture together. Jesus affirmed this when asked what the greatest commandment is: “, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (From Mark 12) Jesus also said that all of the Law and the Prophets hinge on these two. So, shouldn’t we also seek to hinge our understanding on these two commands? Shouldn’t we seek unity in the work of the Gospel and the building of the Kingdom? Does the world know you are His by His criteria? Measure up by Scripture, the Holy Spirit and Love.
1 Corinthians 13:1
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
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