Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – love of God means living in obedience to loving each other. Love for God does not mean defending my interpreted rightness of him. He is clear about constantly loving each other, and leaves a lot else to the beauty of the journey, that we are to travel in love together. There is no end to constantly.
2 John 1:5-6 TPT
[5] Dearest woman, I have a request to make of you. It is not a new commandment but a repetition of the one we have had from the beginning: that we constantly love one another. [6] This love means living in obedience to whatever God commands us. For to walk in love toward one another is the unifying commandment we’ve heard from the beginning.
Observation
Love unifies. You can’t walk in love towards one another and not be in unity, love unifies. It doesn’t mean we agree on all things, and it doesn’t mean we are the same in practice or doctrine, but it does mean that we are in oneness, as the Godhead is one. This is what love does. Love can handle the messiness of diversity without needing to retreat to the safety and security of sameness. Love can be shared richly together while disagreeing deeply together. Love does not need to leave the table, or take your chair away when issues of difference raise their beautiful head. Love is the power that overcomes all the cries of disunity. And God continually makes one request of us, “constantly love one another.” He makes it with repetition.
Why is it we sacrifice this absolutely clear and constant call of scripture for the sake of upholding, attempting to enforce, and ‘defending’ our differences, my rightness? How often I hear “I can’t share the table with them,” from brothers and sisters whose dad calls them to constantly love. There is no out clause here, there is no love until, or only love when, it’s love constantly. We permission ourselves to not love, God does not give us this permission. We miss, we ignore, we make our own commandments, I’m not sure what we do, but we do it constantly, more constantly than we love. “Love means living in obedience to whatever God commands us”, so how is it we walk out on the command to love in our dogmatic defence of something we have given ‘elevated above love’ status to? Love means constantly loving one another, with no out clauses, no trump cards, no ‘I am defending the gospel’ personal justification heroics. Just one request “Love one another constantly.” Do this above all else and see all else find a beautiful place in love.
Here is the key thing we need to hear – “For to walk in love toward one another is the unifying commandment we’ve heard from the beginning.” Jesus prayed in John 17 for oneness of his body so that the world would know him and the love the Father has for the world. Loving each other is the only means to oneness, it is the unifying commandment. It’s the only way the world will know. Can you see and hear what is at stake? So don’t break it for the sake of your elevated sense of some right. The world can’t sit together in disagreement, and God’s children are worse, what a travesty. Where would this impulse come from? Is it time we matured as believers and were obedient to what is God’s clear and simple call to love?
Application
Love my brothers and sisters constantly. Walk the new path of disagreement in love, see the beauty of diversity, and lower my finger-pointing judgement for the open wonder of others’ views. Know I see “dimly” and don’t be so pious with my rightness. Be a fellow journeyor who walks in love with others on the path of knowing God and living in His fullness. Allow the wisdom of God, the power of unity and oneness, to be the cause of salvation for the world. Pay the price for this, the price of my security in my rightness.
Response
Thank you that you call us to constantly love and not constantly defend and war with each other. Sorry, we choose the latter more than your clear command. Thank you that love trumps rightness for you, for love is the only path that leads towards rightness. We stand at the gate to love and demand rightness for entry, where you fling the door wide open knowing that as we walk with you in love we discover you and your rightness. Why do we love manipulative punishment as a means to rightness above constant love as the path to rightness? Father thank you that you forgive us for we still have no idea of what we do.
Meditation
Meditate – constantly love one another.
Consider:
What trumps love in your walk? Who do you struggle to walk in love alongside?
How important is ‘being right’ against constantly ‘being love’ for you?
JOURNEY DEEPER
