In my study of 1 John, chapter 4, verse 21 spoke to me: “And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (ESV).
Digging a little further, in 1 John, Chapter 4, the Apostle John repeatedly reminds us that God is love. In fact, John tells us, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 Jn 4:20).
What does this mean? Well, the ESV Study Bible comments, “Love is presented here as a consequence of, not a precondition for, being born of God. Unbelievers can love others to some degree, but not in the way that God’s indwelling presence enables Christians to love.”1
I must note here that God has many other attributes of which love is only one. One must be mindful that scripture does not support the common thought that love is God. This just means that God’s love is the ultimate source of any love. For God so loved us, he gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16) so that sinful humanity might receive eternal life. All one needs to do is confess Jesus as Lord and repent of their sins. This is the Gospel that we as Christians place our faith and confess to the world.
Ultimately, the question comes around to who are we to love? Everyone? Well, yes! According to scripture, we are first supposed to love God above all else. Next we are to love our fellow followers of Christ. Finally, we are to love our neighbors (Matthew 22:36-39) – those who do not believe in Jesus. We get further clarification in Luke 10:29 when the wealthy lawyer asked Jesus who his neighbors were. Jesus gave the parable of the Jewish man who was attacked by robbers and left for dead. A priest and a Levite both passed the man by without showing any compassion or providing help. However, a Samaritan had mercy on the beaten man and provided for his recovery. What’s the big deal? Simply that Jews did not like or get along with Samaritans (some would say “despise” would be a better description). This is why Jesus used this example to answer the young lawyer’s question. Once the young lawyer affirms that the one that showed mercy to the beaten man, the Samaritan, was the neighbor, Jesus told him to go and do likewise.
The Bible provides us with a number of direct instruction to love everyone. For example, Matthew 5:43-44, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.”
This is where the rubber meets the road and where most Christians fall short – way too short. Now, I do not believe that as a Christian you have to be best friends with everyone, but love you neighbor implies that we care and appreciate others regardless of who they are to us. Just like the Samaritan. This is tough at a time where Christians are being attacked and marginalized by the current culture, being labeled in derogatory ways, “cancelled”, and mis-characterized. But we as Christians can take this as a challenge, or test from God that we should be joyfully willing to undertake, head on! Why should we? Well, because Jesus told us to, and that is good enough for me. The true depth of our faith, a genuine faith in Jesus, produces fruit with love being top of the list.
Pray that God will give you the courage and compassion to love everyone. I think we can all agree that what the world needs most now is more love and a lot less hate.
1 Crossway Bibles. (2008). The ESV Study Bible (p. 2435). Crossway Bibles.
Dr. Johnny Guimaraes 