How do Christians really love One Another?
Loved People Love People: What It Really Means to Love One Another
We live in a world where it's possible to be constantly connected and still feel completely alone. And sometimes, that same disconnection sneaks into the church. This is a look at what it truly means to love one another, why it matters, and where that love actually comes from.
Why Did Jesus Never Intend for You to Follow Him Alone?
One of the easiest things to forget as a follower of Jesus is that Christianity was never designed to be a solo journey. We can attend church, sit in rows, sing the same songs, hear the same sermon, and walk out without ever really knowing anyone. We can attend church without ever becoming the church.
But that is not what Jesus had in mind.
When Jesus saved you, He didn't just save you from something. He saved you into something. He brought you into His family. He made you part of His body. He gave you brothers and sisters in Christ.
Throughout the New Testament, you see this repeated pattern of commands:
- Love one another
- Accept one another
- Serve one another
- Bear one another's burdens
- Forgive one another
- Encourage one another
- Pray for one another
- Build one another up
Over 50 times, the New Testament gives us these kinds of commands. And when you step back and look at them, you realize something important. God did not design Christianity to be a spectator sport.
How Does the Way We Treat Each Other Affect Our Witness to the World?
Jesus said something striking in John 13:35: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13:35
He didn't say the world would know us by our Sunday gatherings, our music, or even our knowledge of Scripture. He said they would know us by how we love one another.
People are watching the church. They're watching how we respond when someone fails. They're watching whether we make someone who looks or talks a little differently feel genuinely welcome. They're watching whether our love is real or just something we sing about on Sunday mornings.
The way we treat each other is part of how the world sees Jesus.
Where Does Real Love Actually Come From?
Before talking about how to love one another, we have to start with the foundation underneath all of it. We have to start with where love originates.
First John 4:7 says, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." - 1 John 4:7
John doesn't begin with what we're supposed to do. He begins with where love comes from. Love comes from God.
Then in verses 9 and 10, he gives us the definition: "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." - 1 John 4:9-10
Notice how John defines love. He doesn't define it as an emotion. He defines it as an action. He sent. He gave. He sacrificed. That's what love does. It gives.
What Does It Mean That God Loved Us First?
We didn't start this. God did. That's the gospel in one sentence.
God didn't wait for us to clean ourselves up. He didn't wait until we became lovable. Romans 5:8 puts it plainly: "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8
While we were still a mess, God moved toward us.
That has to change the way we love one another. If God loved us when we had nothing to offer Him, what right do we have to withhold love from someone simply because they aren't where we think they ought to be?
Christian love isn't a reaction to how lovable someone is. Christian love is a reflection of how loving God is.
Why Is It So Hard to Love Actual People?
Loving people in theory is easy. Loving actual people is hard.
It's easy to love people who agree with you, who are kind to you, who think like you, who appreciate you. But real love gets tested when somebody disappoints you. When somebody betrays you. When someone in the church hurts you. When somebody doesn't say thank you. When somebody keeps making the same mistake.
That's when you discover where your love is actually coming from. Love that comes from you eventually runs out. Love that comes from God has a different source entirely.
What Is the Right Order: Love God First, Then Love Others?
First John 4:11 says, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." - 1 John 4:11
Notice the order. Since God so loved us, that is the foundation. Then comes the response: we also ought to love one another.
Our love for one another isn't the starting point. It's the overflow. We don't love people in order to earn God's love. We love people because we have already received God's love.
If you get that backwards, you will burn out. If you try to love people out of your own strength, trying to prove something or earn something, you will eventually run dry. And when you run dry, you become resentful.
But when you truly understand how deeply you have been loved, something changes. Loving others stops being merely an obligation and becomes a response. You don't have to manufacture it. It begins flowing out of what God has already done in you.
Here's a simple truth worth writing down: loved people love people. The more deeply we understand the love we have received from God, the more freely we can release that love to the people around us.
How Can an Invisible God Become Visible to the World?
First John 4:12 says something remarkable: "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us." - 1 John 4:12
God is invisible. You can't photograph Him or shake His hand. And yet John says there is a way the invisible God becomes visible. When His people love one another.
People may not be able to see God directly, but they can see what His love does to His people. The church can preach about God's love all day long, but the world needs to see it.
What Does Love Actually Look Like in Practice?
First John 3:18 says, "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." - 1 John 3:18
Not just words. Not just lip service. Actions.
Consider someone who walks into a church for the very first time. He doesn't know anyone, doesn't know where to sit, doesn't know what to expect. He finds a seat toward the back. Nobody is unkind to him. But nobody moves toward him either. And there is a difference.
Sometimes we think love means not doing mean things to people. But biblical love is so much bigger than that. Love doesn't just ask that we not hurt anyone. Love asks that we move toward people.
Here is what that kind of love looks like in real life:
- Sending the text you almost didn't send
- Showing up at a hospital instead of just saying "I'm praying for you"
- Making the meal
- Refusing to repeat what you heard about someone else
- Serving when nobody notices
- Moving toward people instead of keeping your distance
You can be nice and still keep people at arm's length. You can be polite and never actually care. You can smile at someone every Sunday and never know their name. Nice can keep its distance. Love gets close.
And that is exactly what God did. He didn't stay at a distance. He came near. He sent His Son. He moved toward us.
Who Is God Asking You to Move Toward?
The question isn't simply, who do I need to be nicer to? The deeper question is: who is God asking me to move toward?
Who have you overlooked? Who have you decided is someone else's responsibility? Who have you dismissed? Who have you been waiting on to make the first move?
Because love doesn't always wait for someone else to move first. Sometimes love takes the first step. That is what God did for us. He took the first step. And now, because we have been loved by Him, we are called to move toward one another.
Maybe it's a family member you've written off. Maybe it's someone in your church you've been avoiding. Maybe it's someone you've decided isn't worth your time. The Spirit has a way of bringing someone to mind in moments like this. Don't ignore that.
You don't have to love them because they've earned your love. You love them because you have been loved.
And if you're thinking, "I don't have that kind of love in me," you're right. That's actually the point. You cannot give away what you have not received. If you're trying to love people without first being filled by the love of God, you're pouring from an empty cup.
So the first step isn't to try harder. The first step is to go back and receive. Remember what God has done for you. Remember the cross. Remember that while you were still in the mess, Christ came and died for you. Let that truth move from your head into your heart, until it comes out through your hands.
Love that is received becomes love that is released.
Life Application
This week, identify one specific person God is calling you to move toward. Not someone easy. Not someone who has already been kind to you. Think of someone you have overlooked, avoided, or written off, and take one concrete step toward them. Send the text. Make the call. Show up. Sit with them. Say their name.
Before you do, spend time reflecting on how God moved toward you first. Let that truth fuel your action.
Ask yourself these questions as you go into the week:
- Is there someone in my life right now that God is asking me to love, and I have been unwilling?
- Am I trying to love people out of my own strength, or am I regularly receiving from God's love so I have something to give?
- Does the way I treat people inside and outside of church reflect the love of a God who moved toward me when I had nothing to offer Him?
- Am I being nice, or am I actually getting close?
We don't love one another because we're naturally good at it. We love because we have first been loved by God. And when God's people love one another the way He loved us, the world begins to see a glimpse of the God who started it all.
-Thoughts from our Senior Pastor, Cesar Arocha. Cesar is a native of Venezuela who came to know Christ at 16. He served many years as an evangelist with Team Impact sharing Christ through physical strength. Now he serves as Senior Pastor at DBC in Hixson, TN (north of Chattanooga, TN) with his wife Lacey and their four children. Cesar is passionate about sharing Jesus, walking alongside Christians as they grow in their faith, and caring for our community.
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