“The command we have from Christ is blunt:
Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.”
—1 John 4:21 The Message
Jesus made a very strong, clear point to His disciples, for them to be acknowledged or recognizable as a Christian would require them to stretch themselves, that they would be bound by obeying His new command. He said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).
When Jesus commanded Christ followers to love fellow believers, to love one another, he used the word agapate, that Greek word has the widest application of love in all moral and social obligations. This love is a love that fully gives of self (agape). And, agapate is inclusive of a Christ follower to yielding or giving of one’s “will” to engage in phileo, which is to be a friend, to be fond of someone, to have personal attachment. Simply we’re commanded to give our hearts over to the unity Christ, we are to love, befriend … like one another.
I, and probably you, have been drawn into conversations about fellow Christians. We say and hear things, such as, “I know Jesus commanded us to love other believers, and I do—but, I don’t have to like them.” That’s like saying, “I love brussel sprouts, but I don’t like the taste of those nasty little things!” In simple terms, Henry Blackaby states, “We can claim to love God all we want, but if we are not intimately connected to the people of God, we are deceiving ourselves.” When you or I say that a fellow Christian is someone "I love, but I don’t like them," well, you’ve deceived yourself, and offended the body of Christ—of which you are part.
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