A Love for All Seasons
Candy, cards, and carnations, oh my! February is the season of love! With Valentine’s Day dominating the commercial airwaves, store shelves stocked with candies and other gift ideas, and supermarkets housing entire nurseries of floral arrangements, even the most oblivious of males cannot help but get the hint: buy your sweetheart some flowers! While this is a somewhat artificial emphasis on loving others, it is still a nice time to show our love to one another.
But what of the church? Shouldn’t every season be an opportunity to emphasize love? Shouldn’t we constantly be reminded of the love of Another for us? Christ Jesus came to show love, the greatest love. Jesus told us, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13). Not only did He speak these words, but He also lived them out, dying on the Cross to pay for the sins of His children. So as a church, we are to preach, teach, and live this ideal. Finding ways to “die to ourselves”, “taking up our cross daily,” and sacrificially serve one another is a part of our calling as believers.
This Valentine’s season, let’s consider how we are called to love others, which we will call ‘One-Anothering’. This idea comes from Scripture: We are called to love one another as Christ first loved us. So, what does this kind of ‘one-anothering’ love look like? Consider some of the ‘one-another’ statements found in the New Testament. We are told to:
“Be devoted… (and) give preference to one another.” (Romans 12:10)
“Accept one another.” (Romans 15:7)
“Care for one another.” (I Corinthians 12:25)
“Bear one another’s burdens.” (Galatians 6:2)
“Forgiving each other.” (Ephesians 4:32)
“Encouraging… and build up one another.” (I Thessalonians 5:11)
“Stimulating one another to love and good deeds.” (Hebrews 10:24)
“Confess your sins to … and pray for one another.” (James 5:16)
“Serving one another.” (I Peter 4:10)
“Love one another.” (I John 4:11)
In these passages, we are told to be devoted to, accept, care for, burden-bear, forgive, encourage, stimulate, confess sins to, serve, and love - one another. Many verses encourage us to love each other, and these are but a few. To continue to grow in our understanding of what this kind of ‘one-anothering’ love looks like, we need to continue to gather weekly for corporate worship and sharing in public fellowship. We encourage you to reengage if you have gotten out of the habit of gathering each week for corporate worship and fellowship. We want and need you to join us again. Christ’s church needs your gifts and talents, and time. And Scripture makes clear you need it too. You need these regular gathering times to be encouraged, sharpened, and fed if you are in Christ.
We grow in our love for the Lord and others in both large and small group settings. Both kinds of gatherings are encouraged in Scripture. Smaller group gatherings exist as a Biblical concept because the Trinity exists and has always existed in a small group relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They have always existed in a perfect, loving relationship. Additionally, when Christ came to the earth, He drew to Himself a small group of disciples, men from diverse and disparate backgrounds, vocations, and temperaments. He poured His three years of ministry primarily into training and loving these men so that upon His return to Heaven after His resurrection, they might carry on His ministry of reconciliation. The book of Acts records the church's expansion under these men's continuing ministry. These churches were, in actuality, small group home gatherings. Small group gatherings have been vital in expanding the church throughout the generations.
At Temple, we have large group gatherings- corporate worship and smaller groups as well. We gather for Sunday school at 10 am each Sunday morning in smaller, age-based groups. We have Sunday school classes for our elementary ages (K-5th graders), teens (6th-12th graders- with a class for our younger teens and our older teens meeting with the adults), and our adults in the Gathering Place (Fellowship Hall). Additionally, our ladies meet monthly for a Bible study (WIC-Circle) and gather for a Ladies' Luncheon, and our men have begun to meet more regularly as well for service and breakfasts. Something new that we are working on is regular gatherings for our children and teens. Right now, we are linking arms with Filbert PCA down the road for youth group on the first and third Sunday evenings from 5-6:30 pm at their church and small groups (one for guys and one for girls) on the second and fourth Sundays from 5-6 pm at Temple. We are excited to join together for these different kinds of gatherings. This will allow us to spend more time getting our children together for fun, fellowship, and teaching regularly, which is a group we really want to focus more on.
During this ‘season of love’ in February, we hope that you are reminded to reach out to those closest to you, giving and receiving cards, gifts, and other tokens of affection. In addition, we pray that you will join us at Temple regularly, both in our large and small group gatherings, so that we all might grow in our understanding of just how much the Lord loves us and then sharing this with others inside and outside of Christ’s church.