The Only Mark of a Disciple

WORDS: MICHAEL TAN, PCC MEMBER

John 13:34-35 34

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

From my earliest encounters with the Christian faith more than four decades ago, I had always associated it with love; more precisely, that God is love. I was probably not alone as most people from the outside looking into the church would describe our faith as one characterised by love.

It is therefore somewhat sad that four decades later, from the inside for so long now, my faith’s interaction with love does not seem tenuous or entwined enough. Yes, I have mellowed, probably kinder, slower to anger, more considerate of others, actively serving in church etc. but these do not add up to me as one that is driven by love. Sadly.

John 15:12-13 12

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Jesus’s final words to His disciples before His betrayal were very pointed, leaving no wriggle room for misunderstanding: if the world were to know we are His disciples, the unmissable and unmistakable trait would simply be that we love one another. I think what Jesus was saying was that even if His disciples did not get all that He shared in His three years of life and ministry with them, the sum of all that He was teaching them would be adequately manifested when His disciples love one another. A love that makes one willing to lay down his life for a friend, which He was about to demonstrate first-hand for them shortly.

Romans 2:28-29 28

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

There is a real danger when one is “well-churched” (one such as I), that one winds up (inadvertently?) preferring behavioural change over genuine transformation. Why is that so? Because like the Pharisees of old, it is always easier to change the externals, while the old man inside of us, the “Adam”, becomes merely dormant, not dead. We busily serve and get involved in all and sundry in church but the love for fellow disciples is not growing in us.

What are the tell-tale signs? When we want to get the first and last word in, when we serve someone and we grit our teeth because of how difficult they are and that they do not know we are tolerating them literally for “God’s sake”, or when our thoughts and actions remain mostly guided by what they mean for us, or for our interests. When we find it hard to remember to deny ourselves first, take up our cross before we live each day, until we simply sidestep these conditions precedent, carrying on with our hurried harried lives.

When my heart does not ache, much less break, for the hurt people around me suffer from. When my thoughts for each day are more preoccupied with tasks than people. When I am seriously trying to do good but the people I do them for become mere fleeting faces in the blur of life.

What happened to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15)? These are what disciples engaged deeply in each other’s lives do, those who share their brother’s weal and woe. Do we?

1 John 4:19-21 19

We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

You see the Apostle John in his later epistles elaborated that since God is love, we cannot say we love God and hate our brother. Of course, most of us hopefully have few that we hate within the body of believers. But not hating our brother does not cut it with our Lord. Jesus commands us to love one another like He loves us. That’s a very high bar; unattainable without His Spirit working in us and we yielding to the Spirit and not fighting or quenching Him.

So the progression appears clear. If our desire is to grow in love for God, it begins with us loving our brother (or sister) first. They are our “training ground” before we can decently love our neighbour the way God wants us to. And when we grow in both these aspects, loving brethren and loving neighbour, then we are truly making progress toward loving God. And becoming Jesus’s disciples. A difficult process? For sure it is. But that is how God moulds us to become like Jesus. That is how iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17) to become more effective instruments in the Master’s hands.

It requires us to let God transform us, it requires unhurried time before Him, meditating on His Word and heeding the still small voice of the Spirit. It then requires obedience and boldness to live out what He convicts us to. And to do this within His body of believers, all on a common course toward Him. We cannot gravitate towards the lowest denominator here; it will surely cost us our lives living for Him instead of for ourselves.

Would you care to come on the journey?

James 1:12 12

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.