Apparently ‘love’ is a big deal in the Scriptures. It only takes a cursory read to come to that conclusion. Jesus lived it, the Apostle Paul called it ‘the most excellent way’ and John says “This is the message you heard from the beginning: We (brothers and sisters in Christ) should love one another (brothers and sisters in Christ).” It is not new, it is just how it is, for those who walk in the light. It is a proof of ‘who’ you love.
When you think about it, it is a good test, like our willingness and capacity to give of our finances. Love is not the application of the Kingdom of God in the lives of those who live in Jesus but the goal established from the beginning.
One commentator Westcott in The Epistles of St John says……..
“The whole aim of the gospel is the creation and strengthening of love”.
Love is not just an idea but the aim and purpose of living and should find its expression in the community of faith. I believe that means that relationships ‘one to another’ have priority over issues and points of disagreement; they have priority over programs and facilities. That is hard for us as from the outset of our lives the predisposition to hate is in us as we are descendants of Cain and not Able. Yet always we have choice and as children of the light we have the presence of the light to guide us away from hatred toward love, from death to life.
What might our community of faith look like, what might be the quality of the soil to bear a crop thirty, sixty, hundredfold look like if we were to make loving God and one another aim and purpose of our being whilst allowing the light of God to dispel darkness and love to chase away fear?