By Chris WittsWednesday 28 Aug 2024Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
What is Christianity? It’s not about rules and regulations. In fact, it’s an old command that goes back to the days of Deuteronomy and the Old Testament, which says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. So this was the command to love God.
And it says, do not revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people. That’s in Leviticus 19:18. But love your neighbour as yourself. So here’s the commandment to love people. And of course, these commandments have been on the books from the very beginning. So it’s not just a New Testament innovation. Love is found from the beginning of the Bible, right through to the end.
Love is critical
And I think that unfortunately, many people think that the Old Testament or the God revealed in the Old Testament, is a wrathful God who is out to get you whereas Jesus is loving. But that’s not quite right in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, we see God as a God of love.
Do you remember that Jesus once said – as I’ve loved you so you must love one another, and I think that’s the key. We are not to love just as we love ourselves but as Jesus loved us.
And in the Old Testament it is said to love our neighbour as ourselves. And in the New Testament we are to love one another as Jesus demonstrated how He loved us. So the question becomes, how did He love us? Well, it’s a very simple answer. When we look at the life of Jesus, perhaps you’ve read the Bible and you understand that Jesus loved us even when we didn’t deserve His love. We’re not that lovable, you know.
But we needed his love. And the Scripture says Greater Love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. That’s John 15:13, and that’s exactly what Jesus did. He loved us so much that He did lay down His life for us. So that’s what makes His love the more incredible. We were still in our sin. In fact, the Bible says that God demonstrates or shows His love for us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. That’s Romans 5:8.
Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. This is what the Bible says. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there’s nothing in him to make him stumble. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness. He walks around in the darkness. He doesn’t know where he’s going because the darkness has blinded him. And they were words from 1 John 2. So a true Christian can forgive other people. He might find it, or she might find it very hard to do that. But that’s what we’re commanded to do.
Love is one of the true marks of Christianity, love and action. It’s made visible, and I think we can show our love for each other by how we think about one another. Someone said. Thought is the father of the deed. In fact, in Proverbs if you read it. It says a person is how he thinks in his heart. So if you have critical or judgmental thoughts about someone, you can be sure that the love of God will not be manifested in your life. So we must start by looking at our attitude.
We must give one another benefit of the doubt.
Let’s try and see others through different eyes. You know the eyes of faith and hope.
The Bible says in Romans 15:7 – Accept one another just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. So it’s about receiving one another, as Jesus received us.
What about the way we speak to one another? The Bible tells us to speak words seasoned with grace. And I’ve spoken about this before about how powerful our words are. We can encourage people, we can discourage people. And our tongue, of course, can be very destructive. So we ought to try and speak words of encouragement.
How we act towards one another. That’s also a very important thing. Christianity is all about forgiveness as well, forgiving other people. So if we love one another, we will not stumble around in the dark nor cause other people to do the same.
Let’s Pray
Well, dear Lord, we know that sometimes we say things we don’t mean. We say it and then the words are gone and we can’t change what we’ve said. But Lord guard our mouth, help us to think clearly before we speak. Help us to be people of love that show true Christianity. And this is a prayer I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.