Wednesday, January 25, 2006
1 Peter 1:22-23 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
The apostle Peter was with the other apostles that last night before Jesus' death -- when He told them: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
What Jesus taught, Peter teaches here. For Peter now says: "Love one another fervently with a pure heart." Now here we are, persons in various walks of life, all claiming to be Christians; that is, members of the same family -- brothers and sisters of our Lord Jesus. We spend time with each other at work or at play, together in Christian congregations or with the Christians in our own families. "Love one another," Peter says. Obviously, this is not just that we are to have a certain emotion in our hearts towards one another, but we are to keep the best spiritual interests of the other person foremost in our minds and then do those things that are of the greatest spiritual benefit of the other person.
Isn't this an impossible command? By nature we are concerned about our own enjoyment and pleasure and we are not all that concerned about doing things for the benefit of others. There usually are a few people we can at least be friendly to, but Peter wants us to love all the others in our spiritual family, even those we don't really like or want to be with.
Is it possible for us to love one another fervently? Notice what else Peter says in these verses. He says: "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another." You see, first of all our souls need to be purified. From a bad tree nothing but bad can come. From our natural, self-centered selves no true Christian love can emerge. First, our souls need to be purified. How does this happen? The Spirit brings us the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and through that truth we are led to obey the truth, that is, to believe the Gospel. Brotherly love is the fruit of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts by means of the Gospel.
