Colossians 1:1-4
 ¹Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timotheus our brother, ²To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. ³We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, ⁴Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which ye have to all the saints,

If you had a sibling growing up, then you learned about a life-long struggle early on.  The struggle that I’m talking about is consistently loving those around you.  One thing that I’ll be willing to admit about my relationship with Shad (my brother) is that I wasn’t always lovable.

The problem with that fact was that I was around my brother.  A lot.  We were in the same family, same school, same youth group, shared a room, went on the same vacations, and my mom even bought us the same clothes (different sizes obviously 🙂 ).  

Being part of a family doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically love each other.  It takes work.  With my brother it took a lot of work because we were around each other so much.  This meant more opportunities to hurt each other, and a lot of opportunities to make some great memories.  I love my brother!  We get along great now, and he’s one of my best friends.  That wasn’t always the case.

If we were all honest we would admit that we aren’t always loveable, and neither are our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We’re not always worthy of love, Jesus said that they will know we are his followers by our love for each other. In this passage, Paul commends the Colossian church of their “love for all the saints.”  These people loved the family of God, so much so that Paul had heard of it where he was.

Today I want to start a series of posts that I’ll do ‘til Friday, specifically on loving other Christians.  Come on back for more!

Do you love other believers?  Your church? Your Sunday School class? How do you show it?