By Our Love
Being the Church, Commentary February 4th, 2008In John 13:34-35, Christ says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
It’s funny to me that most churches today decide if you are a disciple by a “conversion” moment, baptism, a profession of faith, or agreement with a belief statement.
Being a disciple of Christ has NOTHING to do with a mental assent and everything to do with having Him as the decisionmaker in each of our lives. The gage Christ has given us is love not law.
Too bad gaging love requires relationship instead of a few words on a form. God forbid we waste church resources on truly getting to know people instead of building better and bigger programs and expanding our rolls. The way of the Kingdom is always ineffecient and ineffective in the eyes of the world.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Preach it, brother. John 13:34-35 is probably my favorite verse in all of scripture, judging by the fact that I tend to cite it all the time as if I knew something about it. Which I don’t. But that doesn’t stop me from trotting it out.
Spot on, Matt. Getcher ears on, you who have ‘em.
February 5th, 2008 at 10:59 am
OK, how do you make your blog automagically turn scripture citations into links to Bible Gateway? That is most awesome. I bet it’s a Wordpress-only thing, though. :-\
February 5th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
It’s a plugin in Wordpress. Sorry.