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Three truths we should remember about our love for each other: 1. We are to love one another in the same way Jesus (Yeshua) loves us. He gave up his life for us and we, with his love and power, can give up our own interests for what our brothers and sisters need. We are equiped to, and must be willing to, empathize with each other. 2. Our love for each other is our proof to the world that we are followers of Jesus because God is made manifest to the world through our love for oneanother; when we relate to, put up with, and carry each other’s burdens – our love reflects God’s glory to the world. 3. Jesus (Yeshua) prayed for us to love one another and God always heard Jesus when he prayed; so we know God is working everything together in our lives so we will be what we should be: for good; and we are blessed when we cooperate with God and work with him as he re-creates us in his image.
The one another verses in the Bible are instructions for loving each other and living lives that will glorify God. Walking in the Light, as John spoke of in I John 1:7, means seeing ourselves as God sees us so our daily practice will more nearly match our position in Christ. We will see the sin in our own lives and farsake it, while we daily practice goodness, righteousness, and truth.We will daily die to our old nature with it’s unfruitful deeds of darkness.

We reflect God’s attributes when we demonstrate generocity, cordiality, and reception to our borthers and sisters without selfish greed.Greed and selfish behavior have no place in the fellowship of God’s people. We can see that things the world considers treasure are really trash compared to the riches of God’s character, so we can shun them and display the wealth of the righteousness and holiness of our new nature. Our new nature is kind, soft-hearted, and forgiving toward the family members.

So, all this is very fine, you say, but what about that woman who “says” she’s a Christian but acts like the devil’s grandmother behind that fake smile and those righteous words with no action to back them up? You believe you have the gift of exortation and need to show her the error of her ways, you say. Well, the meaning of exortation is to call to ones side, strengthen by consolation, comfort, instruct, admonish, beg (intreet, beseech), to strive to appease by entreaty, to recieve consolation, to instruct (teach). Let’s talk about that first. We don’t pick and choose who we want to be soft-hearted and forgiving toward. Jesus left us examples of how to call others to our side. First and formost, we have to be sure our side is God’s side – and God is love. Tough love is great but we have to be sure it is not a harsh counterfiet of love. It is God who puts us through the fires of refinement, our job is to strengthen by encouragement and consolation. The best way for us to instruct each other is by our own example. Our gentle explaination of why we do what we do will go a lot further toward instruction than harsh lectures.

We can’t weed out the tares in our wheat field. If that woman or man says she or he is a stalk of wheat, we must treat them like a family member, not an outsider. God wil seperate the wheat from the tares in his own time and way. Meanwhile we will go on being light to the darkness around us no matter where it is and the one another verses from the Bible, our instruction manual, will be our guide.