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Love One Another

Love One Another

God has chosen us for a new life. It is a life of love. It’s characteristics are:

  • Compassion
  • Kindness
  • Humility
  • Quiet strength
  • Discipline
  • Even tempered
  • Forgiving

And so, we should wear love everyday. It is a garment we should always put on.

Therefore, as God’s chosen ones [elect], holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. | Christian Standard Bible. (2020). (Col 3:12–14). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.

The word elect means “chosen of God.” God’s words to Israel through Moses help us to understand the meaning of salvation by grace: “The Master did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people. But because the Master loved you … has the Master brought you out [of Egypt] with a mighty hand” (Deut. 7:7–8).

  • This miracle of divine election did not depend on anything that we are or that we have done; for God chose us in the Messiah “before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4). If God saved a sinner on the basis of merit or works, nobody would be saved. It is all done through God’s grace that it might all bring glory to God.
  • Election is a “sacred secret” that belongs to God’s children. It is not a doctrine that we believers explain to the unsaved. “The Master knows them that are His” (2 Tim. 2:19), so we must leave the working out of His eternal purposes with Him. Our task is to share the Good News of the Gospel with a lost world.
  • God set us apart. That is the meaning of the word holy. Because we have trusted Jesus, we have been set apart from the world unto the Master. We are not our own; we belong completely to Him. Just as the marriage ceremony sets apart a man and a woman for each other exclusively, so salvation sets the believer apart exclusively for Jesus the Messiah. Would it not be a horrible thing, at the end of a wedding, to see the groom run off with the maid of honor? It is just as horrible to contemplate the Christian living for the world and the flesh.

God loves us. When an unbeliever sins, he is a creature breaking the laws of the holy Creator and Judge. But when a disciple of Jesus sins, he is a child of God breaking the loving heart of his Father. Love is the strongest motivating power in the world. As the believer grows in his love for God, he will grow in his desire to obey Him and walk in the newness of life that he has in the Messiah.

God has forgiven us. “Having forgiven you all trespasses” (Col. 2:13). God’s forgiveness is complete and final; it is not conditional or partial. How is the holy God able to forgive us guilty sinners? Because of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. God has forgiven us “for the Messiah’s  sake” (Eph. 4:32), and not for our own sake.