Friday, September 10, 2010

Living Love

Our global community would profit greatly by learning to accept, love, encourage, strengthen and help one another. The Bible teaches that peace, unity, and love should be the behavior of Christians as the bride of Christ.

My friend Bill Konstantopoulos suggests, “It is about time we practice what we preach about holiness, unity, love and brotherhood.” He believes we “must learn to hold onto our fellow Christian, because he/she is a member of the family (The God Who Is/ Konstantopoulos/2010).

To make his point, Bill tells this story of Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play major league baseball. While breaking baseball’s ‘color barrier’, Jackie faced sneering crowds in every stadium. While playing one day in his home stadium in Brooklyn, he committed an error. His own fans began to ridicule him. He stood at the second base, humiliated, while his fans jeered. Then shortstop “Pee Wee” Reese came over and stood next to him. He put his arm around Jackie Robinson and faced the crowd. The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that arm around his shoulder saved his career.

With that story, Bill concludes thus:
Let’s love one another. Too many of us in our effort to succeed, to promote our program and our ideas, we walk over the body of the saints. This love must be binding between minister and minister, between minister and people, and between people and people. Your joy should be my joy, your concern should be my concern, and your pain should be my pain. You see, we are brothers and sisters and members in the same family. Let it be said of us, “Behold, how they love one another…”

Bill’s point is well taken. The church needs to practice what it preaches, especially within the confines of its own fellowship. But equally important is that we practice it outside of our fellowship. As Jesus suggested, only in this way will people know . . .

From Warner’s World, I am
walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

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