Jesus is preparing His disciples for His imminent departure.  Before He leaves to go to the Garden of Gethsemane and then to the cross, Jesus gives His disciples a new commandment.  That commandment is that they should love each other.  He then gives them the example they are to follow; they are to love each other just as He loved them.  This love for each other would be the proof to the world that they were disciples of Christ.

Two thousand years have not changed that commandment; Jesus still wants His disciples to love one another as a proof to the world.  Sadly, this is lacking greatly within the church and the church is suffering because of it.  Jesus gave this commandment because this was to be one of the greatest evangelistic tools available to the church; Christ’s love.  Nothing will draw people to Jesus like His love being manifested to the world and especially to other believers.

It is appalling the kinds of things that immature believers will do to one another.  They lie to one another.  They will gossip against each other.  They will sue one another.  They will harbor resentment and bitterness to other believers.  They will hate each other and attempt to drive people out of the church.  I say that these types of people are immature because if they weren’t, they wouldn’t do these kinds of things.

Selfishness and self-centeredness run rampant within the modern church.  Self-love is a poison that will kill the best of churches.  That is not even the worst part.  The worst part of this self-love cancer is that unbelievers will look at what goes on in the church and it will drive them away from God and salvation in Jesus.

People need the love of God in their lives.  People don’t need to hear about the love of Christ; they need to see the love of Christ.  If an unbeliever looks into your life and doesn’t see the love of Christ being manifested toward other believers, they will not believe that you have the love of Christ and therefore you have nothing to offer them that can help them.

Nothing could be more important in our lives than having the love of Christ and allowing that love to be revealed to the whole world through the way that we love other believers.  The way that the love of Christ is most powerfully manifested is through forgiveness and reconciliation.  Nothing communicates the love of Christ like repentance and forgiveness.  Repentance and forgiveness are the cure for the cancer of self-love in the church.  Jesus, teach us to love others just as You do.

Read: 2 Samuel 4:1-6:23; John 13:31-14:14; Psalm 119:17-32; Proverbs 15:31-32