So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples. John 13:34
What’s the tell-tale sign of being a religious person? Jesus said it’s love.
Nestled between her mom and dad, a young girl holds her infant brother. They’re all afraid to leave their home that’s in a large refugee camp. Driven by violence in their own country, they aren’t wanted in the land they find themselves in. “I’d like to get out, to get fresh air,” the girl tells a reporter. But that won’t happen soon. There have been riots protesting the refugee camp. Talking about the people of the town the refugee camp borders, a reporter observes: “They share a religion but not a love.”
What does it mean to be religious—to be a good Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian? Jesus Christ upset the ideas of the most religious people of His culture with these words: “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:34).
Your love for others, Jesus declared, is the sign. The Bible says, “…Love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:7). Because God loved, He acted. Scripture says, “God shows how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins” (I John 4:9-10).
Put simply: “…If we love each other, God lives in us” (I John 4:9,11b).
