Daily Devotional
We, being many, are one body in Christ
Text:Romans 12:5
“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”
Message
Being one body in Jesus Christ means we love one another as Christ loves the church and gives his life for her.
It means that love is the chief test of our membership of the body of christ.
1 John 3:16 says, “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren”
During the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, sentenced a soldier to be shot for his crimes. The execution was to take place at the ringing of the evening curfew bell. However, the bell did not sound. The soldier’s fiancée had climbed into the belfry and clung to the great clapper of the bell to prevent it from striking. When she was summoned by Cromwell to account for her actions, she wept as she showed him her bruised and bleeding hands. Cromwell’s heart was touched, and he said, “Your lover shall live because of your sacrifice. Curfew shall not ring tonight!” This is an example of what love can do.
1 JOHN 3:13-24 reveals love for one another as one of the strongest proofs of being saved. It outlines Christian love as being extensive, expensive, and expressive.
Genuine brotherly love knows no boundary and sets no limit.
Brotherly love is also costly. The example of Christ says it all. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
Genuine love will cost us talents, treasure, and time to be spent for others.
Love is also expressed by sincerely helping persons in need; that is, by sharing our earthly possessions (food, clothing, money, etc.) with them.
Real love is an action, not a feeling. It produces selfless, sacrificial giving.
Christian love is different from the way the world loves. Naturally, people may display genuine love and concern for their fellow humans, but most of the time, such gestures are factually wrapped up in self. The world puts self first before others. This genuine Christian love, devoid of self, begins with an encounter with Christ.
John 13:35 says “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”.
So love is the proof and test that we are Christians.
By experience, wherever there are genuine products, there are bound to be counterfeits. These counterfeits tend to appear genuine to the eyes of the undiscerning. This is because they take so much resemblance to the original and genuine. The major difference, however, is that they are of low quality and standard and may not function effectively as the original.
Counterfeit products cause a lot of damage. They cause heavy financial loss to manufacturers of original products and a lot of harm and loss to end-users.
As Jesus addressed His disciples in JOHN 13:34-38, preparatory to His departure from them, He commands them to love one another genuinely. Love, according to Him, is the proof that will identify them as His disciples and attract others to their fold. It is what will mark them out as being genuine and not fake.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to find true Christians whose lifestyles match their claims. Expectedly, the world is getting more confused about what Christianity is all about because of the apparent contradictions they observe in the lives of so many professing believers because the true proof of the Christian faith is absent.
This does not take away from the fact that there are so many genuine Christians around. One piece of evidence that marks them out that Christ spoke about in the text is pure, fervent, selfless, and enduring love. Where this is operational, there will be an absence of envy, vainglory, slandering, backbiting, backstabbing, immorality, cheating, hatred, etc. This kind of love will authenticate the gospel and fuel the spread of God’s word.
Love is one Christian dialect that the world wants to understand and the testament, epistle, and letter they want to keep reading.
May God help us. Amen.