Conflict and Courage

“Love One Another,” December 17

1 John 4:7-21

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 1 John 4:10, 11. CC 357.1

After the ascension of Christ, John stands forth as a faithful, earnest laborer for the Master.... The love for Christ which glowed in his heart led him to put forth earnest, untiring labor for his fellow men, especially for his brethren in the Christian church. CC 357.2

Christ had bidden the first disciples love one another as He had loved them.... After the descent of the Holy Spirit, when the disciples went forth to proclaim a living Saviour, their one desire was the salvation of souls. They rejoiced in the sweetness of communion with saints. They were tender, thoughtful, self-denying, willing to make any sacrifice for the truth's sake. In their daily association with one another, they revealed the love that Christ had enjoined upon them.... CC 357.3

But gradually a change came. The believers began to look for defects in others.... They lost sight of the Saviour and His love.... John, realizing that brotherly love was waning in the church, urged upon believers the constant need of this love.... It is not the opposition of the world that most endangers the church of Christ. It is the evil cherished in the hearts of believers that works their most grievous disaster and most surely retards the progress of God's cause. There is no surer way of weakening spirituality than by cherishing envy, suspicion, faultfinding, and evil surmising. On the other hand, the strongest witness that God has sent His Son into the world is the existence of harmony and union among men of varied dispositions who form His church.... CC 357.4

Unbelievers are watching to see if the faith of professed Christians is exerting a sanctifying influence upon their lives; and they are quick to discern the defects in character, the inconsistencies in action.... Christians are all members of one family, all children of the same heavenly Father, with the same blessed hope of immortality. Very close and tender should be the tie that binds them together.... “Let us not love in word,” the apostle writes, “but in deed and in truth.” ^{33Ibid., 546-551.} CC 357.5