Growing Love for Our Fellow Christians

                             By A. W. Tozer
 

     By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
     if ye have love one to another.           John 13:35

         Sometimes an earnest Christian will, after some
     remarkable spiritual encounter, withdraw himself from
     his fellow believers and develop a spirit of faultfinding.

         This is a dangerous state of mind, and the more
     dangerous because it can justify itself by the facts---it
     may easily be true that the professed Christians with
     whom he is acquainted are worldly and dull and
     without spiritual enthusiasm.

         It is not that he is mistaken in his facts that proves him
     to be in error, but that his reaction to the facts is of the
     flesh!  His new spirituality has made him less charitable,
     and we must be cautioned that any religious experience
     that fails to deepen our love for our fellow Christians
     may be safely written off as spurious.

         The Apostle John makes love for our fellow
     Christians to be a test of true faith, insisting that as
     we grow in grace we grow in love toward all of God's
     people: "Every one that loveth him that begat loveth
     him also that is begotten of him" (1 John 5:1).  This
     means simply that if we love God we will love His
     children.  All true Christian experience will deepen
     our love for other Christians!

         Therefore we conclude that whatever tends to
     separate us in person or in heart from our fellow
     Christians is not of God, but is of the flesh or of
     the devil.  Conversely, whatever causes us to love
     the children of God is likely to be of God!

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     Yours in Christ,
     Paul N. F.