Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:13
The One Step Daily Devotional is intended to provide just one step each day for your journey with God. Every journey requires water breaks. Here is a water break for you.
What is the Christian community supposed to look like? All who have spent any amount of time in a community of Christians have experienced or observed some interaction that does not meet expectation. The expectation for Christians to be like Christ encompasses many features, but the all-encompassing feature of the Christian community ought to be love.
It is in the category of love that many find disappointment. We come with expectations of what that love should look like. Perhaps you came to belong to a Christian community and expected that love to look like words of encouragement. Maybe you came to a Christian community expecting someone to serve you in some way, take the time to get to know you, give you a hug or shake your hand, or something similar. Maybe you expected to be treated justly, spoken to kindly, respected rightfully, or given grace and understanding.
Perhaps you expected these things and did not receive them, or you did for a time and it stopped.
I’m sorry. I cannot speak for everyone, but I do believe that as a member of the Christian community, I can represent it. Surely, if I cause damage in society as a member of Christian community, many will allow my damaging behavior to color their view of the Christian community as I stand as a representative of it by declaring my membership to it. Similarly, please allow these words I speak now to color your view of the Christian community: I’m sorry.
The Church attempts to follow Christ well, but the Church is not Christ. Therefore, the Church is not perfect and painfully reminds others of this truth. This is not an excuse for poor behavior and lax standards, for Christ is the standard and a perfect one at that. The imperfection and failings of the Church are simply a reality.
If you are a member of the Church, there is a picture of love that we must all aim for. If you are outside of the Church and looking in, or if you have visited or been a part of a church and left, the heart of God for you is this…
In the words of Rodney Whitacre,
Jesus loves just as the Father loves (v. 9), and he commands his disciples to love one another just as he has loved them (v. 12). Thus, the community is characterized by divine love. If this love were just a feeling, such a command would be impossible to fulfill. But the love Jesus refers to is an act based in a certain state of heart. Specifically, it is the laying down of one’s life based on willing the good of the other. By God’s grace we can indeed choose to will the good of the other, and we can choose to act accordingly. This is the love Christians are called to in Christ, for Jesus says we are to love one another just as he has loved us, which he immediately defines in terms of laying down of one’s life for one’s friends (v. 13; cf. 10:14–15, 18; 13:34, 37; 14:31.
Lord, please help us to love well.
Today, take a step.
Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to lay down your life for someone by putting their needs above your own. Perhaps today God wants you to love others in the way you wish that they showed love to you. Maybe today God wants you to forgive someone for not representing the love of Jesus well. Perhaps today God wants you to aim for His lofty standard of love. Maybe today God wants you to receive His love in your heart.
Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.
Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.
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*Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (pp. 521–522). Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.
Burge, G. M. (2000). John (p. 419). Zondervan Publishing House.
Klink, E. W., III. (2016). John (C. E. Arnold, Ed.; pp. 656–657). Zondervan.
Whitacre, R. A. (1999). John (Vol. 4, pp. 378–379). IVP Academic.
Beasley-Murray, G. R. (1999). John (Vol. 36, p. 274). Word, Incorporated.
Mounce, R. H. (2007). John. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Luke–Acts (Revised Edition) (Vol. 10, pp. 577–578). Zondervan.