by Craig McKellar
What if…? What if any church were to take Jesus at his word by putting into practice the “one another” statements found all over the New Testament? What if we committed ourselves to a three- year journey of being transformed by His love? As followers of Jesus we are being transformed in our thoughts and actions in becoming more like Him. One of the marks of maturity is to “walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:1). Learning to love well is a lifetime process and Jesus is committed to our maturity, inviting us into a partnership towards that end. We are “working together with him” (2 Cor. 6:1) as God works “through us” (5:20).
Jesus’ love can be described in its breadth, length and depth by the more than 30 “one another” statements in the New Testament. If we are “members of one another” (Rom. 12:5; Eph. 4:25), then it follows that we (a) should “care for one another” (1 Cor. 12:25) as we would do for any members of our own physical body and (b) it is to everyone’s advantage if we are healthier as a body. Some of them are negative like, “Do not slander one another” (James 4:11) and “Do not lie to one another”(Col. 3:9); to protect ourselves from harm but the majority of ‘one another’s’ are positive, designed to strengthen and build us up (1 Thess. 5:11; Rom. 14:19). What is clear when we see them all at once is that we were never meant to walk this spiritual journey on our own.
What if we were to take one of these “one another” statements and month by month purposefully work them into our lives by putting them into practice? Within three years we would have worked with Jesus to transform Odyssey into a stronger healthier body whose members are growing into the fullness of Christ. The church is meant to be a safe environment where our strengths can be nurtured [“…welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you”(Rom. 15:7); “bearing with one another” (Col. 3:13); “Be kind and compassionate to one another” (Eph. 4:32)]. It is not a perfect environment but one where our weaknesses are acknowledged so that healing may come. Join with me as we commit to this process of partnering with Jesus so that we can “work out” what He is busy ‘working within’ (Phil. 2:12-13). For the “greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13) and “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).