“They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love” was copyrighted in 1966. It is as relevant today as when Jesus said it.

³⁴ “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35

After seeing the movie, “The Jesus Revolution,” we have been doing songs on Sunday evenings from the ’75 Baptist Hymnal that were from the Jesus movement. We have sung, “People to People,” “He’s Everything To Me,” “Pass It On,” and last Sunday, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love.” The first line of the song is, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.” I found a verse the other day that says that very thing,

¹⁷ But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:17

The lyrics changed “spirit” to “the Spirit” indicating that we are joined by the indwelling Spirit of God. Here it is from the Living Bible (LB),

¹⁷ But if you give yourself to the Lord, you and Christ are joined together as one person.

To become one with the Lord is to think His thoughts, feel His emotions, and do His works. Philippians 2:13 tells us that He gives us both the desire and the power to do His will. What is His will? That we will be one in Him,

²¹ My prayer for all of them is that they will be of one heart and mind, just as you and I are, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me. John 17:21 LB

Jesus has said it twice, “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples,” and “the world will believe you sent me,” meaning that people will believe in Jesus because they see Jesus in us. When we love like Jesus loves, then we are most like Jesus. Look at this promise:

¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us as much as that, we surely ought to love each other too. ¹² For though we have never yet seen God, when we love each other God lives in us, and his love within us grows ever stronger. 1 John 4:11-12 LB

We will be talking more about this oneness and showing His love one to another in later posts. For now, we will allow the song to speak for us,

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

Abba, there is no better or greater way to express who You are to the world than by Your children loving each other. We know that Your compassion spills out onto those around us who don’t know You when we love each other. You draw people to Yourself through the demonstrated love of Your children. May we always keep the main thing the main thing: Love one another. Amen.