Walking in Love – our relationship with others
Jesus said in Matthew 22:34: But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.
- Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him and saying,
- “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
- Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
- This is the first and great commandment.
- And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
- On these two commandments hang all the law and the Prophets.”
This is my commandment that you love one another you’re your joy maybe full.
Jesus commands us to walk in love with our fellow man. What does it mean to “Walk in Love”? It’s all about our manners and how we treat others. Even a parent must teach their child about social etiquette in order for their child to succeed in life. We all must learn what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Let’s breakdown the specifics and consider the elements of behavior that dominate the Lovewalk.
Manners:
The biggest factor of the Lovewalk is manners. Manners are the social etiguette or customary behavior of how we treat others. They speak volumes about us to others. We even need to speak and our manners go before us like a reputation. If we want to learn what is acceptable social etiquette we should take a look at the history in the Bible. It was and still is taboo among Jewish people to have poor manners in greeting people. In Biblical Jewish society being kind to strangers was a dominant in their culture because Abraham was kind to the three strangers which meant that Abraham honored God. In other words, one should always be kind to strangers because that stranger could be an angel or even God you could be entertaining. The New Testament refers to this custom as well.
If we think manners are not important we should remember that Jesus did not rebuke the synagogue system, He rebuked the leaders of the synagogue system. That system was not God-instituted. The synagogue system developed as a result of the Bablyonian captivity because the Jews had to create a worship system to survive as Jews and not become acclimated into Bablyonian society. Their own identity depended on it. The synagogue system was a blend of spiritual and social learning system which has been handed down from generation to generation in Jewish society. But Jesus rebuked the leaders and exposed them for their hypocrisy because their behavior was insincere toward God. He rebuked them because their manners towards others were unacceptable to God. The Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day literally lived and moved completely removed from society because they looked down on the common people of their day. The Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day created a dynasty of sorts and became the pious pontiffs who were so dominated by pride that Jesus had no choice but to rebuke them in order to show others how to please God.
Today the church is the Lord’s synagogue system, created by the Holy Spirit. But the culture in most churches today don’t operate in a God driven culture. They operate in a man-driven culture. They have taken intellectual and psychologically mixed with marketing driven strategies to appease the masses of the megachurches. The Bible does instruct us how to operate and administrate the church, but few follow it.
When was the last time you saw someone in the church make an apology when it was due? When was the last time you saw a mature Christian teach the Word? I see young men leading churches and serving up nothing more than a cocktail of 1 part intellgencia, 1 part emotional manipulation, 1 part psychological theories with just a twist of Bible to satisfy the hunger of social interaction. There is very little spiritual food out there and it’s found in the most unlikely of places. It’s very sad and we wonder why Jesus isn’t real in our lives? We wonder where is the revival? We keep filling up stadiums for revival meetings but the Holy Spirit doesn’t attend. Why? Because we’re not walking in Love with one another. It’s the little foxes that spoil the vines.
It’s the way we treat one another that’s appalling to the Holy Spirit. It grieves Him to look at how we’re treating each other. It’s difficult for a single woman to walk into a church today. That takes a lot of guts, especially those with children. The women greeters and leaders inside the church treat the newcomers with cold shoulders and disdain. They operate in nothing but jealousy and suspicion and the men leaders not only allow it but deem those women to be operating in the spirit. But the truth is, by their fruits you know them. Anyone who rejects another without behavior meriting rejection is ever behavior of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it – no good tree can bear bad fruit. The enemy has stolen church ground here and we must take it back!
It has driven the church culture down so far below the acceptable standard of love that it’s hard to pioneer a church. There’s no need formula needed. It’s all in the Bible. All we need to do is read it. Walk in Love! It’s a commandment, it’s not an option.
What’s so important about the LoveWalk is timing. When we approach or are approached, it’s crucial how we greet or are greeted because it’s hard to forget when we’re dismissed by others so immediately without provocation. We take note of it immediately and it can be done without even a word spoken. We know when and where we’re welcome and when and where we’re not. Manners are both silent and spoken. It’s in our tones, our demeanor, our eye contact, our body language, how we speak to one another, and whether we’re dismissive or welcoming.
So if we think it’s just not all that important, now we’re being dismissive with the Lord because it’s His command that we walk in love with one another. If we’re believing God for something and not getting results, that’s the first place we should examine ourselves – in our Lovewalk.
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