Love Your Family And Your Fellow Man

"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. " John 13:34-35

The relationship between man and woman is important to men, but also is a part of God’s plan for the reconciliation of the world unto Himself. It is given to us for our own sakes and also for the accomplishment of God’s purposes.

I once knew a bus driver who discovered that he, too, could call forth people by the way in which he greeted them and did business with them. On his morning runs he observed that many people were grumpy and sullen, and treated him and their fellow passengers discourteously. At first his inclination was to respond in the same way.

Then he discovered that by taking the initiative and greeting his passengers with a smile and cordial word, and by making change cheerfully and being patient with their grumpiness, the spirit of his passengers underwent a transformation. Over the years a number of people told him how grateful they were for his good cheer. They said that his influence had often been decisive in their lives. It had affected their relations with other people.

Thus, his attitude toward people and his method of relating himself to them as a driver of a bus became his ministry; and since he was a member of the church, the church’s ministry reached out and worked through that bus driver into the lives of many who may never have come anywhere near the church. Through such relationships. God is present and active in the world.

We are to love God by loving one another, and in loving one another we introduce one another to God. This is the work of the church and the vocation of the people of God. We are called to love one another with the love wherewith God loved us.

In order for us to participate in the love of God which is at work in the world, we need to understand ourselves and our own human problems in relation to love.

We do not find love by looking for it; we find it by giving it. And when we find love by loving, we find God. Our Lord gave us His love generously, not in order that we might be loved, but that we might be freed to love one another.

The place where we encounter God first is in the family. The family provides the individual with his first experience of living in relation to other persons, and this is his first experience of Christian fellowship. Immediately we are confronted with the nature of God’s creation and, therefore, with the revelation of Himself and of how He works. We are confronted with the relational nature of all life; for nothing exists in isolation. Everything and every person finds full meaning only in relation to other things and persons