Scripture: "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another."—JOHN xiii. 35.
We are taught in most of our creeds that the true Church is to be found where God's Word is rightly preached, and the holy sacraments dispensed, as instituted by Christ. Christ Him¬self took a much broader view. Not merely what the Church teaches through her ministers, was, to Him, the distinguishing mark of His followers, but a life lived in love to the brethren.
It is most important that we should understand this. In God, love reaches its highest point, and is the culmination of His glory. In the man Christ Jesus on the cross love is at its highest. We owe everything to this love. Love is the power that moved Christ to die for us. In love, God highly exalted Him as Lord and Christ. Love is the power that broke our hearts, and love is the power that heals them. Love is the power through which Christ dwells in us, and works in us. Love can change my whole nature, and enable me to surrender all to God. It gives me strength to live a holy, joyous life, full of blessing to others. Every Christian should show forth, as in a mirror, the love of God.
Alas, how seldom do Christians realize this! They seek, in the power of human love, to love Christ and the brethren. And then they fail. They are sure it is impossible to lead such a life, and they do not even greatly desire it, or pray for it. They do not understand that we may and can love, with God's own love, which is poured forth unto our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
Oh, that this great truth might possess us: the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. If we fully believe that the Holy Spirit, dwelling within us, will maintain this heavenly love from hour to hour, we shall be able to understand the word of Christ: "All things are possible to him that believeth," and to love God and Christ with all our hearts; and, what is even harder, to love our brethren, and even our enemies, while love flows from us as a stream of living water, "through the Holy Spirit."
