They’ll Know Us by Our Love
By Rick Warren
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35 (NIV)
The sign of a Christian is love. How many people know you’re a Christian because of your loving lifestyle?
We sing about love, talk about love, pray about love, and study love. But do we show it? To develop love as your life principle and make it your greatest aim, you need to take action as soon as you finish reading this devotional—because love acts!
Here’s what you need to do to develop a loving lifestyle.
First, start acting lovingly in your relationships. Have you acted unlovingly toward someone? It’s time to seek reconciliation. Make things right with your kids, your spouse, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your parents, or someone at school or work.
Then, start increasing the number of relationships you have. If the most important aim in life is to love, then we need to build as many relationships as possible. Why? Because the world will know about God’s love by the way Christians love each other—and by how Christians love other people around the world.
You cannot live a loving lifestyle as a hermit. You spell love T-I-M-E. It takes time to love other people. If you love your friends, you’ve got to spend time with them. If you love your kids, you spend time with them. If you love Jesus, you have to spend time with him too.
Love always costs time and energy. But it’s always worth it.
Can you imagine what would happen if everyone in the church loved like this—if we all committed ourselves to acting in love and giving our time unselfishly so that people could get a taste of how much God loves them? It would change the world. It would grow God’s Kingdom. It would make God so happy.
People are attracted to Christ more than they are persuaded to him. They’re attracted by the love of God shown through the people who claim to follow him. And they won’t care what we know until they first know that we care.
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This devotional © 2018 by Rick Warren. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
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