GROWING LOVE FOR OUR FELLOW CHRISTIANS
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”
(JOHN 13:35)
Sometimes an earnest Christian will, after some remarkable spiritual encounter, withdraw himself from his fellow believers and develop a spirit of fault-finding.

This is a dangerous state of mind, and the more dangerous because it can justify itself by the facts—it may easily be true that the professed Christians with whom he is acquainted are worldly and dull and without spiritual enthusiasm. It is not that he is mistaken in his facts that proves him to be in error, but that his reaction to the facts is of the flesh! His new spirituality has made him less charitable, and we must be cautioned that any religious experience that fails to deepen our love for our fellow Christians may be safely written off as spurious. The Apostle John makes love for our fellow Christians to be a test of true faith, insisting that as we grow in grace, we grow in love toward all of God’s people: “Everyone that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him” (1 John 5:1). This means simply that if we love God, we will love His children. All true Christian experience will deepen our love for other Christians!

Therefore, we conclude that whatever tends to separate us in person or in heart from our fellow Christians is not of God but is of the flesh or of the devil. Conversely, whatever causes us to love the children of God is likely to be of God!