Last week we studied the three verses in the Gospel of John of Jesus’
command to “Love one another”.
John 13:34-35, 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By
this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one
another.”
John 15:12, 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have
loved you
John 15:17, This is my command: Love each other.
We studied the point that fulfilling this command is not natural for
most Christians, and that at least fifteen times by three different writers of
the epistles, Christians are reminded to obey this commandment and are
encouraged on how to exemplify and or how to live out loving each other.
On our webpage and or on Facebook page (Hope Chapel Oak
Lawn) you can find the full article, which contains much more information about this important topic.
Today, among Christians there is a growing belief and trend, that it is
not necessary to regularly attend church services, and or be committed to
a church congregation. The Barna Group states it this way, “…those who
self-identify as Christian and who strongly agree that their religious faith is
very important in their life, but are “de-churched”—that is, they have attended church in the past, but haven’t done so in the last six months (or
more). These individuals have a sincere faith (89% have made a personal
commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important to their life today), but
are notably absent from church.”
My concern as a pastor is, if being “de-churched” is a trend in a Christian’s life, it will almost be impossible to fulfill Jesus’ command to “Love
each other”. Yes, these Christians probably do love God, but doesn’t Jesus tell us, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” John
14:15.
It is so very important to realize that there are Christians who have
conflicts with their work hours and would faithfully attend church if they
could. There are also those who physically cannot attend services for one
reason or another who would regularly attend church services if they could.
The Bible teaches us that loving each other is much more than regularly attending weekly church services and Bible studies. Loving each other
happens inside the church building and outside the church building. However, it is impossible to “Love each other” by yourself when you do not
have contact with other Christians on a regular basis in a formal setting.
Hebrews 10:25a tells us the following, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…”. From this verse, it
is clear that Christians over two thousand years ago got into the “habit”
of not regularly attending Church services, which is no diffe
