Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. John 13:34
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. 1 John 4:7-10
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Perhaps no greater arsenal of weapons exists for the believer outside of the Great Commandment. It is so important that Jesus LITERALLY said “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it:You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40) He took it so seriously that He said all people would know how much we loved Him by this: how we loved one another (John 13:34). The church is not the building we meet at once or twice (or many times) a week. It is found within these two powerful words: one another. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit, but He also gave us one another, and why? Let us look to Ecclesiastes 4 for that answer (though there are plenty of verses in the New Testament about this as well!):
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Bound in God, two together cannot be easily broken! It is for us to be united with one another, to LOVE one another, that we not only tell the world we belong to Jesus but by our love, that we also strengthen and build each other up by our love for one another! This type of love speaks to a community that pursues one another, and seeks the welfare of all within (and without as we advance the Gospel). It is time for us to love fiercely, aggressively, and to seek one another out. We can love God, but we cannot love Him with all our being unless we're loving One another.
