by Dave Brown

Created on: February 20, 2007   Last Updated: May 19, 2007

The Scriptural model of love is to seek the good of your neighbor before seeking your own good. Paul speaks of this on multiple occasions in his letters. While Christ-followers are encouraged by Paul to certainly love each other, they are instructed to love everyone.

My observation of America's Christian subculture is that we fall desperately short. Denominational lines encourage hatred and segregation between Christ-followers of different churches. Baptists teach that Methodists are wrong, Pentacostals teach that Evangelical Free churches are in error, etc. All denominations make a claim to exclusivity in "doing church" the right way, and yet, when we read of the church's founding in Acts 2, denominations didn't exist. Man invented these lines of demarcation, not God. They are frequently based on theologians, not Scripture. Worse, they tie up the time of Believers, encouraging to reach each other instead of loving and helping those who are in need.

Another difficulty here is that denominations frequently alter churches into a social club more concerned with dinner events and so forth, instead of the mission that Christ laid out for the church.

None of this is Scriptural love.

The model to follow here is Christ. His love was self-sacrificial. He left the Heavenly realm to enter our own, in order to show God's love to each of us. This is the model for love that the church is called to show: the kind of love that says "it's not about me." True love places the needs and desires of the recipient of that love above those of the lover.

Remember, Christ said that the two greatest commandments were to love God and love each other. Everything hinges on those two things.

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