Philadelphia (brotherly love)

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, (Philippians 1:9 ESV)

If the first and greatest commandment is "to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength," then the second commandment is very similar. It is to "love your neighbor as yourself."

It is impossible to love God without loving what he loves, and God loves our neighbor. Look around you. Look at the culture and the people. Look on the sidewalks and in the neighborhoods. Look downtown and uptown and across the tracks. Look out in the fields and the farms, urban centers and suburbia. Jesus loves those people. And we are called to love them too.

Look at your friends, your family, your peers; your co-workers, associates, employees, employers. Look at the boss and the janitor, the manager and the maintenance man. Look at the children and the elderly, the middle-aged man and the mom. Settle in and really see the people. 

Look at the people around you who are like you, and then look at the people who are different than you. Maybe their skin color is different. Or perhaps their culture is different. Their language may be different. They think differently or act differently. They have different likes and different loves and different moral values. They are different. Yet Jesus loves them.

Now think about your enemies and consider the fact that God loves them, too. Don't believe me? Consider the words of Jesus:

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44-45 ESV)

God loves his enemies. God loves your enemies. And we who are his children should love them, too.

A man once asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" Instead of answering him directly Jesus told him a story. You may have heard of it. It's known as "The Parable of the Good Samaritan" (Luke 10:25-37). In the story Jesus does not directly answer the question "who is my neighbor?" Rather, Jesus tells what it means to love.

When Paul prays for the people that their love might "abound more and more" he has more in mind than just their love for God. This is because Paul understands that it is impossible to love God properly without loving our neighbors. In fact, Paul wants us to understand that to love God well we must love our neighbors--with the same love that God has for them, with the love shown by the Good Samaritan for the man who fell among thieves and was left for dead.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:20-21 ESV)