The Devotional – Loving one another!

The Devotional – Loving one another!

Comment: A couple of years before the Apostle Paul’s death, he wrote a letter to a friend and pastor of a church. The name of that friend is Philemon. Now we are not apostles, yet we have friends and from time to time we are urged by circumstance to write to our friends. If there were no circumstances in life, life would be mundane and love for one another would be taken for granted. In other words, much about living would be forgotten. Pondering these thoughts as I hope you might; take a look back in your memory bank to those people who assisted in you in your journey with the Christ of God. We are not writers of scripture, but we do have vital experiences of those who walk by faith. Even we ourselves are epistles of FAITH, HOPE and LOVE, written in the hearts of those who come in contact with us – 2 Corinthians 3:1-3.

Devotional: The epistle that Paul wrote to Philemon is one of personal experience and circumstance. In the apostle’s opening address, Paul addresses Philemon and others of the church in Philemon’s home as “beloved” literally an “overflowing love” for these people. In that memory bank of yours, do you recall those friends of the past, or maybe even the present with overflowing love? 

Philemon 1:1-3 is an expression of grace and peace, not only from the apostle, but Paul extends or includes the source, “from God our Father and the LORD Jesus Christ.” I wonder, if in our letters, notes and memos to others! Do we follow Paul’s example of extending this same blessing to our friends? Or are we just focused on the circumstance of why we are writing?

Personal experience with friends is the foundation or bond that keeps a friendship going. For me godly experience with friends is more important than human circumstance. I would rather confirm my friendship with the folks around me, than to solve a problem related to the circumstances of living in a fallen world. YET BOTH MAY BE NECESSARY during the course of living life.

This is not new to the apostle Paul, in all of his epistles he confronts his friends and fellow laborers with his bond of overflowing love for them. He does so before he approaches the circumstance of church life within the sin cursed world. Yet, we should not think for a second that the apostle Paul is the founder of this approach to maintaining an overflowing love relationship with his friends.

Note that the LORD Jesus reveals His love for the church. Revelation 2:2; 2:9; 2:13; 2:19; 3:1; 3:8 and 3:15. Jesus confirms His love for the faithful in these churches by saying to each church ' I know your works'. So I believe there is a principle here that we should all stick too. The apostle Paul learned to love the church of God by the principle of following Christ; but remember, he once persecuted the church of God to the death of some. And if Christ's teaching is in us via the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can do the same.

There is a great danger if we are not progressing in the Christian Way of Living before God and before our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, some of us need to be retaught in the elementary principles of Christ – Hebrews 6:1-8 and let us not forget that we have not learned to love one another out of our own human resources, but we have learned first, that God is LOVE and in Him we can love one another, because He first loved us – Romans 5:8 and 1 John 4:7-11.