Alive in Love A.D.85
It seems that the described problem had already appeared a few decades after the resurrection of Christ. This epistles of John is believed to have been written around A.D 85.
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1 John 3:11
And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 2 John 1:5
The two verses both contain “from the beginning” as if to tell the audience of that letter that “you should already know this”. It almost implies that the audience of the letter had forgotten to love each other!
I want to say that from A.D. 85 to A.D. 2009, the problem didn’t go away. Though the cause of the problem might be slightly different. It is probably because I have a bad memory, but I seriously cannot recall any sermons on the topic of “love believers”. Maybe it is because of the churches I attend. Or maybe people think that it’s not important.
Sermons usually are centered around certain topics. A lot of them are evangelical in nature. Focusing on Salvation and the good news to the world. A lot of sermons focus on daily issues, and Jesus’ teachings about everyday life. I love all these topics. But writing this post has made me think of “loving believers” as a neglected topic.
We are evangelically oriented. My early Christian services were on evangelism. It still is my mission and may it be the will of God that it will continue to be my mission. The church focuses on evangelism to the out side world. We are focused on the Great Commission. Our programs are evangelical in nature. We aim always to attract non-believers. We focus on being good witnesses to non-believers. We focus on giving good testimony to non-believers. We focus on reaching non-believers overseas by long term missions and locally by short term missions.
Please don’t get me wrong. I believe very very very much in evangelism. I think it is extremely extremely important. That is why I spend so much time and effort on it. I am now however, starting to realise that “loving one another” is even more important.
This is unproven, but I would like to propose that the direct phrase/command "love each other" or "love one another" is repeated more times than any other phrase or command in the New Testament.
I am beginning to think that “loving one another” is “above” evangelism. You must evangelise. But if evangelism stops you loving one another, then you are doing the wrong evangelism.
I don’t know if I should say this. But I will say this anyway because I believe that the truth is good. It is good for the truth to be known. Sometime when I attend church committee meetings, flares start flying and all sorts of human emotions are let wild. But us members are passionate Christians. Sacrificing our time and money and effort on the service of the church of believers. Sacrificing for the sake of the gospel. I have to say, it really does us no benefit if we do not love one another.
Loving one another must come first. If you do not know how to love each other, then do not evangelise. If you do not know how to love each other, then do not take up positions in the church. But you must evangelise and you must serve your God. So learn to love each other!
I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 2 John 1:5
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1 John 3:11
And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 2 John 1:5
The two verses both contain “from the beginning” as if to tell the audience of that letter that “you should already know this”. It almost implies that the audience of the letter had forgotten to love each other!
I want to say that from A.D. 85 to A.D. 2009, the problem didn’t go away. Though the cause of the problem might be slightly different. It is probably because I have a bad memory, but I seriously cannot recall any sermons on the topic of “love believers”. Maybe it is because of the churches I attend. Or maybe people think that it’s not important.
Sermons usually are centered around certain topics. A lot of them are evangelical in nature. Focusing on Salvation and the good news to the world. A lot of sermons focus on daily issues, and Jesus’ teachings about everyday life. I love all these topics. But writing this post has made me think of “loving believers” as a neglected topic.
We are evangelically oriented. My early Christian services were on evangelism. It still is my mission and may it be the will of God that it will continue to be my mission. The church focuses on evangelism to the out side world. We are focused on the Great Commission. Our programs are evangelical in nature. We aim always to attract non-believers. We focus on being good witnesses to non-believers. We focus on giving good testimony to non-believers. We focus on reaching non-believers overseas by long term missions and locally by short term missions.
Please don’t get me wrong. I believe very very very much in evangelism. I think it is extremely extremely important. That is why I spend so much time and effort on it. I am now however, starting to realise that “loving one another” is even more important.
This is unproven, but I would like to propose that the direct phrase/command "love each other" or "love one another" is repeated more times than any other phrase or command in the New Testament.
I am beginning to think that “loving one another” is “above” evangelism. You must evangelise. But if evangelism stops you loving one another, then you are doing the wrong evangelism.
I don’t know if I should say this. But I will say this anyway because I believe that the truth is good. It is good for the truth to be known. Sometime when I attend church committee meetings, flares start flying and all sorts of human emotions are let wild. But us members are passionate Christians. Sacrificing our time and money and effort on the service of the church of believers. Sacrificing for the sake of the gospel. I have to say, it really does us no benefit if we do not love one another.
Loving one another must come first. If you do not know how to love each other, then do not evangelise. If you do not know how to love each other, then do not take up positions in the church. But you must evangelise and you must serve your God. So learn to love each other!
I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 2 John 1:5
It is very encouraging in this post to ‘Love one another’ for our brothers and sisters.
Sometimes it can be disappointed and discouraged when you don’t see the love appearing between one another, and when you don’t see the love in return.
However, in our lives, we always facing up and downs, and sometimes we will lose our directions. When we are lost, we also lost our direction in love and we forgot how to love each other. And when we have busy lives, we can be very easily neglected the people around us, and pay careless attentions to another.
Each person’s lives are not parallel to one another. Our emotions and feelings are changing every day. Just for example, when you love this person for 50%, but he might only love you 40%, for a second day, it might be vice versa, the other way around. We cannot expect other people to love us back for the same scale, but we should also not be disappointed, just to remember the love is there.
We can trust in God, for love comes from him, his love will never fail, we can be confident in that.
We should also continue to love one another, through love we bless and are blessed. That is the promise from God.
Posted by
lic |
5:57 pm, April 23, 2009