If I want to be spiritually healthy, I must learn to LOVE OTHER BELIEVERS. God doesn’t only want us to love Him, He wants us to love other believers. Jesus said it like this, “If you’re going to be my disciple, you can’t just love Me, you’ve got to love everybody in my family.”
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” - John 13:35
The mark of being an authentic Jesus follower, is not just that you love God but that you love his family. God says the proof that you are Jesus’ disciple is that you practice the habit of loving all the other members of God’s Family. You can’t say you love God and then avoid being around other Christians. You can’t do the Jesus thing alone. It’s not a solo life. If you don’t like being around other Christians, you’re not going to like heaven too well. So you need to figure out how to learn to love other disciples of Jesus. Look how the Apostle John put it...
“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.” 1st John 4:20
That’s pretty clear. God says I’m a liar if I claim to love God but I don’t love other Christians.
Because if we can’t love Christians who we can see, how can we love God who we can’t see?
We cannot genuinely love God while isolating from other Christians. And here’s why...
Spiritual growth happens in COMMUNITY.
Spiritual growth happens through my connections with other believers on the same journey. You cannot be a disciple by yourself. You cannot be a follower of Christ without being in community, because it’s all about love. You’ll never grow to spiritual maturity without a church family.
We were put on this planet to love. First to love God supremely, and then to learn to love each other.
You have to have a church family - relationships with other Christians - to learn to love.
This is why being in a church especially in a small group is absolutely essential to your spiritual health. Because you can’t love a crowd. You can worship with a crowd, but you can’t love a crowd. You can’t fellowship with a crowd. You can’t connect in a meaningful way with a crowd. You need to be committed to being connected to a group of believers where you can not only receive love, encouragement, and support, but where you learn to offer those things to benefit the spiritual growth of others in that group.
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