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God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.\xa0 We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:16-21)

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In response to some religious leaders that had accused Jesus of driving out demons by the power of the prince of demons, Jesus replied that \u201ca house divided against itself cannot stand.\u201d\xa0

There is an insidious scheme of the devil by which he seeks to do precisely that: divide the household of faith so that it might not stand.\xa0 He does this by causing us to avoid, fear, and imagine the worst of our siblings in Christ so that our love for one another might grow cold.\xa0 This is the very thing Jesus warns against in his words on the end times in Matthew 24.\xa0 Paul warns against it in 1 Corinthians 2:5-11 as well.\xa0 Even 1 Samuel 18 tells this story, especially verses 12-16 where King Saul\u2019s fear grows and consumes him with mistrust, while David increasingly lives in a different world marked by love.

The antidote to this sort of demonic division, is to receive the love of God who is love and to live this love of God very practically in our love for one another.\xa0 Said differently: the antidote is to receive Jesus\u2014the word of love in action\u2014and become like him in that loving action.\xa0 This is harder than it looks.\xa0

We will toss around little slogans like \u201cjust love\u201d or \u201clove instead of hate.\u201d\xa0 But very often when we do this, we are speaking of loving those that we find it easy to love\u2014those we think that others should start loving just as much.\xa0 Jesus\u2019 form of love is something harder than that.\xa0

Jesus loved the sinners and the marginalized, yes, but Jesus also loved his enemies.\xa0 Jesus loved a sinful humanity that conspired to kill him in the form of a Sanhedrin, Pilate, and soldiers, and he loved this sinful humanity embodied in these people that were killing him, even as they were killing him.\xa0 The words on his lips were \u201cFather, forgive.\u201d\xa0 Who of us have loved a friend to that point, let alone an enemy?\xa0

This work of love is beyond any of us, unless we are actively seeking to receive God\u2019s own love for us to empower us to do it.\xa0 Only in God\u2019s love can we offer costly words of forgiveness even before an offender has repented.\xa0 Only in God\u2019s love can the impossible divides of fear and mistrust be overcome.\xa0 And they must be overcome.\xa0 \u201cFor whoever does not love their brother or sister\u201d in the church \u201cwhom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.\u201d\xa0 \u201cHe has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.\u201d\xa0 I am convinced this is the hardest command in the Bible, but also the most important\u2014as the New Testament everywhere attests.\xa0

On our own, this is impossible.\xa0 But with God, all things are possible.\xa0 And we know it\u2019s possible, because this is what Jesus has done for us.\xa0 We love, because he first loved us.\xa0

\xa0If you\u2019d like some additional wisdom on what love through forgiveness is and isn\u2019t, check out this booklet \u201cForgiveness Fundamentals\u201d from CRC media ministry, Family Fire.

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