With Christ, Practice Makes Perfect Love; 1 John

May the mumbling commence!

Love each other.  It’s pretty simple.  It’s also pretty difficult to accomplish with those you live with day-to-day.  What does the love of God look like on us?  How do we broadcast the light of that love to others… or fail to do so?  Read from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase The Message from chapter three:

For this is the original message we heard: We should love each other.

We must not be like Cain, who joined the Evil One and then killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because he was deep in the practice of evil, while the acts of his brother were righteous.

So don't be surprised, friends, when the world hates you. This has been going on a long time.

The way we know we've been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn't love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don't go together.

This is how we've come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us. This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers, and not just be out for ourselves.

If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. (Verses 11-18)

We could get caught up in comparing ourselves to other brothers or sisters.  We can come to despise those who we see as in a better relationship with God.  Such thought drives a wedge between people. 

Such a thought leads to nothing but destruction and murderous thoughts… thought that will eventually be born into action if we are not careful.  To hate in our hearts is to be a murderer.  Those are tough words!

No, love is sacrificial.  Christ showed us that graphically on the cross.  It means living for others.  It means jettisoning the mantra of this world – looking out for number one (ME!) – and picking up the mantra of Christ Jesus – looking out for other people.  It is a shift of heart and of focus that cannot remain contained in us.

This shift must be birthed into action.  And that action means practice, practice, practice!  Practice Christ-like behavior amongst your brothers and sisters in Christ so that you may be proper representatives of the love of Christ Jesus to the world.

Talk is cheap.  Act, act, act!  Practice, practice, practice.  Then, we will not be the cause of the seeming disappearance of the love of God.  Then, we will be illustrations of that practical, real love of God.

May it be so!

Enough mumbling for now…

Peace Out