John 15:12 says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another even as I have loved you,” and verse 17 says, “These things I command you that you may love one another.” To love one another here means to be built up. Then chapter seventeen continues in the same way. Verses 21 through 23 say, “That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.” When we come to chapter seventeen, we all have to humble ourselves. We are all short in this matter. We have not been built up.
Many Christians today at best have a meeting, but they do not have the building. They have a piling up of stones, not a building up. Today I may feel to “pile up” with one dear brother, but after another two months I may find that he is not so good, so I shift over to another pile. Do not think that someone has come to me and told me about your condition. If anyone has come to me, that must be the Holy Spirit. He has come to me many times with a rebuke, saying, “Look at the situation among you.” I do not know the details of your story, but in my spirit I know the principle. Among us there has been too much “shifting of the piles.” Once we are built up, however, we can never shift. A piece of wood in the building cannot be shifted; it is simply built up.
Give up the expectation to be shifted. I am built up with a certain brother, so I love him. I do not love him because he is loveable. I simply love without a reason. I have to. There is the imperative that we love one another. When we love one another, that means that we are truly built up. By this oneness and building up, the world will be convinced.
How can we expect our friends, family, and relatives to be brought to Christ? Many times our family hears us criticizing the brothers. When we criticize the church and the dear brothers and sisters, our children and wife listen to us. After that, how can we expect them to be brought to the Lord? Rather, they will just shake their heads at the gospel. On the contrary, we must love one another. Even if a wife complains and asks, “How can you love that kind of people?”, her husband can say, “I just love them.” That wife’s mouth will complain and criticize, but she will be convinced in her heart.
The best test is the test of the building. How much we have been dealt with by the Lord and how much we have learned the lessons must be tested by the building. This is why in John 15 as the Lord was dealing with fruit-bearing, He commanded us to love one another. Loving one another has very much to do with the bearing of fruit. If we do not love our brothers and sisters, I do not believe that we can be prevailing in our gospel preaching. If today we criticize a sister, and tomorrow we are unhappy with a brother, and then we preach the gospel, do you think our preaching can be prevailing? The spiritual world is watching. The evil spirits may even speak within us, “Are you preaching the gospel?” There is no convincing power in this kind of preaching. Suppose, however, that we simply love a brother or a sister regardless of what kind of person he or she is. We simply love him without a reason or an explanation. If this is the case, we can be assured that whenever we open our mouth to preach the gospel, there will be the convincing power. The power is not in our voice or loud proclamation. The power is in our convincing life.
If we are going to have a prevailing preaching, we must be pruned by the Father, abide in the Son, pray for people to be brought into the reality of the increase of Christ, love one another, be built up together, and have the oneness. Do not think that in the Gospel of John there is no commission for gospel preaching. This book does have the commission for gospel preaching, but it has it in another way, not in the way of activity, movement, work, or crusade, but in the way of a life always under the pruning of the heavenly Husbandman, always abiding in the Son of God, always praying for certain persons to be brought into the reality of the increase of Christ, and always loving the brothers regardless of their condition or situation. We simply love the brothers because of the Lord Christ. We have learned the lessons and are being built up together with them. This is the prevailing power, the convincing life, of gospel preaching. The gospel preaching is the increase of Christ, and this increase can be possible only by our being put to death. We must learn the lessons from John 15 and 17. How much we need to be built up!
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