THIS is How the World Will Know We Belong to Jesus

April 25, 2024

“Everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35 NIV).

Jesus told His disciples that the primary way the world would know they were His was by their love for one another. Not by how many weeks we attend a church service. Not by how many verses we have memorized. But, by our love.

If you think about it, the way Christ followers are called to love is actually very counter-cultural. We are called to put others first. We are called to make allowances for other’s faults (so, the opposite of cancel culture). We are called to forgive those who hurt us. This type of love doesn’t make sense to the world.

If we love Jesus, then we will love what He loves, which is people.

Have you ever wondered if your life shows much evidence that you are following Christ? Take a look at the way you love the people God has placed in your life.

Christians should be the most loving people on the planet.

We should be serving our community.

We should be loving the hard-to-love.

We should use kind words on social media.

We should be spending time with our kids and our families, giving them our attention.

We should be willing to have tough conversations with our friends, because we love them too much to let them wreck their lives.

We need God’s love in us to accomplish this kind of love toward others.

1 John 4:7-8 “Love comes from God… for God is love.”   

It doesn’t say that God has love. It says God is love. It is his character, his essence. He wants us to be like him. God is the source of all love. If God was not loving, there would be no love in the universe. All love comes from God. The reason we have the ability to love, is because we were made in the image of God. We were made in his image so we could do the two things we were put on earth to do. Learn to love God and learn to love other people.

Can you imagine what would happen if everyone in the church loved like they are called to love—if we all committed ourselves to acting in love and giving our time unselfishly so that people could experience a taste of how much God loves them?

If you want to lead people to Jesus, you have to understand that people won’t care what you know until they first know that you care.

How can you intentionally love people the way Jesus does, this week?