The gospel faith that unites us in a new relationship to one God unites believers in a new relationship of love to one another.
We are one kingdom family, brothers (Romans14.13,15,21), and 'God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit' (5.5). The hallmark, the characteristic family trait we all share, must, therefore, be expression of this love. We are to 'love one another with brotherly affection' (12.10), and to 'owe no one anything, except to love each other' (13.8).
'Love', of course, has become a very threadbare term these days, evacuated of any real meaning in the soppy slush of our frivolous and shallow age. But not in the Bible. Love, for the Christian, is not an anaemic sentiment, but a dynamic determination. It is something you do, not just what you feel, to do with self-discipline not self-indulgence. 'Genuine' Christian love is concrete, expressing itself in a pervasive selfless attitude that puts others' needs before our own in a host of tangible ways (12.9-13.14). Even the great liberating freedom believers have in Christ (8.2ff) must not obstruct this love, for it is a freedom not for license but for loving, not for pleasing ourselves but for pleasing others. Christian love and Christian liberty are not enemies.
