“And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love” (2 John 1:5-6).

The expression “love one another” or its equivalent is found nineteen times in eleven books of the New Testament. For God to say something once makes it important enough that we pay attention to it. When He says something nineteen times we don’t dare ignore it.

The need for this expression to be emphasized so much tells me something about myself. I don’t have to be told very often to love myself. I do that consistently. However, it’s important that I be reminded to love others. I hate to admit this, but in the spirit of honesty I must admit that I can be selfish. It takes God’s love for others flowing through me for me to obey this Scripture completely.

I find some people easy to love and some more challenging. God, though, doesn’t give me room to be selective. He loves everybody and wants me to be like Him. Of course, it doesn’t mean I approve of what everyone does. God loved me when He couldn’t approve of my lifestyle. The truth the Bible reinforces is that we can love everyone, whether we agree with them or not.

The way to impact the lives of other people is to begin by loving them. Faith is essential now but we won’t be living by faith when we get to heaven. We’ll have what our faith was claiming. We need hope now but we won’t need to have hope because our hopes will already be realized. However, we’ll be loving one another forever. Love is powerful enough to last far more than a lifetime.