Love For One Another

“A new com­mand­ment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My dis­ci­ples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34–35)

I had always read such pas­sages and thought that I would never run into some­one who noticed “love” as the iden­ti­fier for being a dis­ci­ple of Jesus. This changed when I met my con­ver­sa­tion part­ner this last year from China. I am not going to reveal his name for con­cerns of his safety, but I know that God has his name writ­ten in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

We began talk­ing, and he expressed a very seri­ous inter­est in Chris­tian­ity. He started attend­ing a church and found answers there that he was search­ing for. Our weekly lunches were sat­u­rated with things of the Gospel. He wanted to engage me and ask seri­ous ques­tions. He strug­gled with the Trin­ity (who doesn’t?), and he began flush­ing out a post­mod­ern rel­a­tivism that he had embraced for years. It was two months before I asked him about mak­ing a deci­sion for Jesus, and boy did I get a sur­pris­ing answer!

He told me that he decided to become a Chris­t­ian before we started talk­ing! I was notic­ing an incred­i­ble amount of spir­i­tual fruit, and I feel bad that I didn’t rec­og­nize what was so evi­dent. I was so wor­ried about mak­ing sure he under­stood all the basics of the Gospel that I for­got to actu­ally ask him if he believed it! When I asked him later what attracted him to Chris­tian­ity he exclaimed that it was the peace, hap­pi­ness, and the love the Chris­tians had for one another that intrigued him. It made that pas­sage above come alive!

The last night we spent together I went over a pas­sage from Matthew 10 explain­ing the per­se­cu­tion that awaits him, and 1 Corinthi­ans 15 about the bod­ily res­ur­rec­tion that he has to look for­ward to. He was wor­ried that he would go back to China and “fall away,” but I was elated to tell him that no one would snatch him out of the Father’s hand (John 10:29). That is good news indeed.

I wanted to help him to begin the life of being a Godly father and hus­band, but alas I am ill-equipped to dis­ci­ple him in these areas. I could only point him to pas­sages that speak to the mat­ter and trust that the Lord will work a mir­a­cle in him through His Spirit. I miss him, but I’m elated to know that at the final trum­pet I will see him again wor­ship­ing the Lamb.