Love Inside Out
If you’re like many in a typical neighborhood today, you know a few of your neighbors, perhaps some well, but the others you may be familiar enough with to throw a wave to as you drive by. However, if you learned one of them was in need, you would not hesitate to step forward with your Christian love to help. What if you saw this as your opportunity to open the door to share your faith? It might indeed be a good opportunity.
Imagine that neighbor had observed you completely neglecting and not loving your own family until that point. How receptive might they be to your witness for Christ? Is that love going to be effective? Love for Christ and others is so important that the Apostle John relates it to our assurance of salvation (1 John 4:13-21). So we can assume that it’s essential that this love be effective.
Truly reflecting Christ to a lost world requires learning to love. After all, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). How will a lost world see this love that God is all about? The standard reaction on the part of most churches is to form ministries and missions to reach out to the needs of the world, which are admittedly many. And what better way to show the love of Christ than to meet these needs? Christians have had a remarkable history of loving people this way. Is there anything wrong with this? No. But biblically, there may be a glaring omission.
There is no doubt that we are to love, but how? Loving is so essential that Jesus designated the two commandments about love as the greatest of all commands: Love God, love your neighbor.
One of Jesus’ most famous parables illustrated what He meant by “neighbor.” In the parable of the Good Samaritan, He made clear that we are to love even those we might otherwise consider utterly dissimilar from us, even our enemies. But the New Testament is also clear that a priority for us demonstrating the love of Christ is to our “brother.” So, what’s the difference between neighbors and brothers?
Neighbors are generally outside the church, while brothers and (and sisters) are those in Christ. When it comes to love in the name of Christ, we are no doubt to love those inside and outside the body of Christ. Both kinds of love are biblical. Which do you think is more difficult? Which does the New Testament emphasize and why?
You may be surprised to learn that loving those inside the church is the primary concern of New Testament teaching when it comes to showing love. It seems we have the most to understand about that. In fact, without learning to love brothers and sisters first, keeping the second of Jesus’ commandments seems impossible.
Most of the instruction in the epistles concerning love for others is about learning to love fellow Christians. The epistles are letters addressed to churches and focus mainly on helping believers get along with one another. There is no point in attempting to express the love of Christ to those outside the church unless we love other believers, especially not if your goal is to present the gospel. Jesus made it clear that “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
So if you have any desire to love your neighbors (and you should), focus on learning to love your brothers and sisters in Christ. The great benefit to our faith is that when our priority of love is straight, our assurance in Christ grows strong. Love for others is foundational to living with confidence in God’s love for us. To effectively keep Christ’s most important commandments, we must learn to love.
“By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” —1 John 2:3