By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The love we show for each other is to be the distinguishing characteristic of Christians (1 John 3:23, 4:7-8, 4:11-12, 4:19-21).
1 John 3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
1 John 4:7-8 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:11-12 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 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 4:19-21 We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Tertullian tells us that the heathen said of the Christians, “See, they say, how they love one another.” However, by the time of Chrysostom, he complained that Christians didn’t show much love when he wrote, “even now there is nothing else that causes the heathen to stumble, except that there is no love. . . Their own doctrines they have long condemned, and in like manner they admire ours, but they are hindered by our mode of life.” (qt’d in Morris)
How well do Christians live this new command of Christ today? How do we improve? It starts in our hearts by loving Jesus more and more each day.