The Importance of Brotherly Love - Protestant Caucus/Devotional

Genuine love among Christians is a testimony to the world, to ourselves, and to God.

The importance of brotherly love extends well beyond the walls of your local church or fellowship hall. In John 13:35 Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” In effect, God has made love for one another the measuring stick by which the world can determine if our Christian profession is genuine. That’s why it’s so important that we have a selfless attitude and sincerely place the interests of our brothers and sisters in Christ ahead of our own.

If you are a parent, you know what a delight it is when your children love and care for one another. Such harmonious relations make for a close-knit family and fulfill the words of the psalmist: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1). God is both pleased and glorified when Christian brothers and sisters love each other and minister together in harmony.

Neither the author of Hebrews nor the apostle John is equating love with a sentimental, superficial affection. As already suggested, practical commitment marks true brotherly love. If you do not have such commitment, it is fair to question your relationship to God (1 John 3:17). Refusing to help a fellow believer when you can, John reasons, reveals that you don’t really love him. And if you don’t love him, God’s love can’t be in your heart, which proves that you don’t belong to Him. This logic is sobering and persuasive. It should motivate us all the more to see the importance of practicing brotherly love: “Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We shall know by this that we are of the truth, and shall assure our heart before Him” (1 John 3:18-19).

Ask the Lord’s forgiveness for times when you did not show brotherly love or when you were reluctant to help another Christian in need.

Read Luke 6:31-35 and notice how our duty to love extends even beyond the sphere of fellow believers. What kind of reward results?

In the study of God's Word, it comes to one's attention that two particulate verses that--for genuinely regenerated Friends of The Christ who are thus Children of Hs Father--bring the matters of fraternal affection () and charity () into the sane context, neither without the other, a mutual commingling of the two, not accessible to unchristian worldlings:

1 Thessalonians 4:9 (AV; Paul addressing members of the assembly at Thessalonika)

But as touching brotherly love^{φιλαδελφία=philadelphia}ye^{2nd person plural} need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to ^continuallylove^{ἀγαπάω=agapaō} one another.

1 Peter 1:22-23 (AV; speaking to all the dispersed Jews)

Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love-of-the-brethren^{φιλαδελφία}, see that ye love^{ἀγαπάω} one another with a pure heart .fervently: (b)eing born again^{ἀναγεννάω, regenerated from above}, not of corruptible seed^{σπορά=spora}, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.

In the overall context, it is only those humans who have been once-and-for-all-time been gestated in the Spirit realm, of the generative germinating seed, the spora, the sperma (1 Jn. 3:9), the Spoken Word of God (ῥῆμα=hrhēma, Rom. 10:17), and created as a completely new entity in that realm.

An in addition, for this process, the exercise of God's Righteous Love, a sovereign preference of another over self and others (Jesus's query to Simon in Jn. 21:15), must be genuine, not faked. It must be proceeding from a sanctified (holy) to another of the same status, and a mutual exchange uncontaminated by greed or self serving motives (Mt. 6:24, Lk. 16:13). This mutual ongoing process is conducted as a command, an imperative from Jesus on the eve of His consummation of the Law by His propitiation, at His crucifixion, of His Father's Righteous Demands of the human race.

It can only be conducted by the empowerment of the Indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome the pre-salvation habitual bent to obedience to the lusts of one's mortal body (Rom. 6:12), in which one has escaped to influence of the Wicked One.(1 Jn. 2:13,14).

Finally, While you and I are commanded to have charitable initiatives toward one's enemies, never expect or demand a likewise response of one who is unsaved (despite what that person professed), for he/she has not within their power to return that unfailing, unflinching Righteous Love of God to you. Know in advance that only a fellow disciple can unreservedly care for you as Jesus does. They cannot reward you, tough, but God will, and abundantly as well.

But if they do not, and are vituperously evidencing a hate for you and for your trust in Jesus and His Word, you are to withdraw from them, committing such to God to deal with their state.

It is a wise things to engage in, a meditation and search of the Scriptures on this topic, as John MacArthur suggests here. Doing so will engage you for the rest of your life as Our Father's ambassador of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18), and that you cannot deny (Mt. 28:20).

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