7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
1 John 2:7–8 NIV
Taken from The Modern Day Disciple Bible Study on 1, 2, & 3 John
Have you ever wished that you were a part of another family? If you were looking for a family to spend time with, one of the first things you would look at before joining them is how they treated one another. By observing their interactions, you would be able to tell whether their family was something you wanted to enter into. So it is with the family of God. When outsiders look at churches, one of the chief qualities they observe is how people within a local congregation treat each other. This is not an accident. Jesus planned for our unconditional love for one an- other to be the number one sign of our authenticity of God’s life truly living inside of us. God, throughout the Old and New Testaments affirmed the importance of loving your neighbor as yourself. However, it was a new command from Jesus for believers to love one another with the same intensity of self-sacrificing love that He displayed for us. I have found that people are oftentimes more harsh with their own family members than with outsiders or strangers. For example, an older brother might treat his younger brother maliciously, yet treat the kid next-door with respect and kindness. This should not be so in the family of God, and this is precisely John’s point. If you say you love God and other people, but you hate your brother or sister in Christ, then you are confused and living in darkness. Professing Christians often fall into the trap of gossiping about other believers, but this just goes to show that they actually hate those people that they are slandering. You do not run down people if you love them. Period. So, if you find yourself in this predicament or something equivalent, you should then realize that you are no longer walking in the light of the love of Jesus. If this is the case, you have become nearsighted and blind. You are walking in darkness, and you must repent and seek to love fellow Christians as Christ loved you. To continue in error would be a signature of heart that was never truly touched by the gospel.
This message is so timely for me. I got a glimpse of God’s great love for me and my family this past Sunday through another couple in our church. They knew that my family had been struggling for some time now, and they came to our help in a big way. We hardly know them, only visiting in passing each Sunday – yet they were led by the Holy Spirit to come to our aid when we most needed it.
There is no way to refute that kind of selfless, sacrificial love, no way to question its authenticity. The overwhelming, hope-filled message from this couple was, “We’ve been there, too – and, one day, you will get to offer this kind of help to another family; this is what Christians do.”