Love one another. That commandment from Jesus to us has different meaning to different folks, depending on the way “one another” is defined. Some define one another as the congregation they serve with (and if someone moves on to another congregation, they are dropped from the list). Some consider the one another to be just other believers (and some define believer as only those who agree with them). Others open the one another up and include their own neighborhood, saved or not. Jesus did say to love your neighbor. Some say we are to love the believer and whosoever will believe when presented with the gospel (Do we know who that is?). Still others open one another up to mean every other human being. Jesus said to love our neighbor and our enemy.
Sometimes we expect more from our brothers and sisters in the congregation where server than we do from the rest of mankind. In our expectation there is an open door for the enemy to plant and harvest unforgiveness. Disappointment and hurt often come from our unrealized expectations, leading to unforgiveness. We expect those we serve with to be without flaws even when we know we cannot be. We allow things, we consider sins against us by our brethren, to go on without forgiveness and create strife in the body and hurts in our own walk. And when someone leaves the congregation, no matter the reason, we take it personally and allow unforgiveness a foothold in our walk.
In our neighborhoods and looking out past to the world at large, we can also get in trouble because of our expectations. We desire to give, and when our giving is not met with the (lets be honest) praise we expected, we get disappointed. The reaction to our giving should not be our goal in giving. Remember our reaction to God giving us His Son. We killed Him! God used that reaction as the doorway to our salvation. If we are giving like we are buying a lottery ticket and are expecting a big payoff, we have unreal expectations. Do we expect God to bless us? Yes. But is that the motive behind our giving? God blessed us first or we would have anything to give, including love with grace and grace with forgiveness.
It has been said, “Love is not love until you give it away.” Not sure who said it first, but I have heard the sentence at different times my whole life. Personally, I believe love is always love even when we do not understand the need to give it away. But, I also believe we do not really understand love until we do give it away. Grace is the same way. Jesus told us we have to forgive to be forgiven. Until we give grace, we don’t really understand what Jesus bought for us on the cross. Grace is still grace, but we just don’t get it.
No matter whom we consider the one another to be, Jesus gave us enough instructions on whom to love to cover all of mankind. Within love is grace to forgive, and within forgiveness there is freedom. Freedom is the freedom to release others, and allow Jesus to release us. If God had not made the first move toward relationship building, we would not have a relationship with Him. The same is true of us and our relationship with the one another, no matter who you believe the one another to be. If God had not provided love and grace to us, we would not have love and grace. If God had not provided salvation to us, we would not be saved; and He provided before we became believers.
© 2010, Tim D. Coulter Sr.