Add To Your Godliness – Brotherly Love

You know brotherly love.

Honestly. You know it. Yet there is more to know about it.

You don’t even need to have a brother to know brotherly love. You don’t even need to be male to know brotherly love.

When Peter encourages his readers to add brotherly love, he could have been referring to the love he had for his brother. Or he could have been referring to the love his Brother had for him.

Reading the last conversation that Jesus has with His disciples before His death is fascinating. In it Jesus really gets close with His disciples. They aren’t just students, they aren’t just followers, these are His family, these are His friends, these are His brothers. As they have that final meal and He shares His heart with them, we get an insight into how much He loves them, how much He wants them to be comforted to know that what is about to happen is for a greater good than they have still been able to grasp. He shares His heart with them and then in His final prayer He wants them to be marked by the love for each other that would be recognisable to others as only His love. That love that allowed Him to be so intimate with those that had been with Him for over three years.

Brotherly love that feeds and cares for each other. Brotherly love that shows each other the right steps to take to fulfil what’s best. Brotherly love – mutual in nature and also edifying. Challenging, encouraging, nurturing and full of the desire for the best to be seen in the other face to face.

Developing and acting on that brotherly love is not as straightforward as it appears. The great hindrance to it often is that selfish desire to be served before serving the other. There’s that creeping desire to be looked after first and most before anything else is considered. Thank God for the example of brotherly love expressed in the Brother we have in Jesus. Serving His brothers, sharing with His brothers, eating with His brothers, giving for His brothers.

Ultimately showing that no greater love has a man that he should lay down his life for his brothers.

Yeah, you know brotherly love.

Yet there is so much more to know about it.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden