This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
1 John 3.11
The people of God, to whom John is writing here, and therefore us as well have a very different understanding of love from the world around us.
The idea of love in the world centres around such areas as romance, sentiment and sex along with various other things but as God’s people we need to grasp what is at the heart of love.
Clearly it is God, for John himself writes ‘God is love’ 1 John 4.8 and then in verse 10 ‘This is love: not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’
So when we hear the message that ‘we should love one another’ it is no light thing. For true love is a giving love; true love is a sacrificial love; true love is something to be practised within the family of God first of all then, as it is practised within, it reaches out to others.
Jesus was asked this question “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
And he replied
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.
Matthew 22.36-39
Take time today to meditate on the source of love; the cost of love; the application of love within the body of believers and how we demonstrate true love to the world.