2. We don’t understand the breadth of God’s love.

3. We don’t understand the cost of Christ’s death in our place.

4. We only understand intellectually, not at a heart level.

5. We don’t nurture our affections for Christ through spiritual disciplines.

6. We don’t understand the glory of the hope of the new creation.

7. We don’t understand the now/not yet tension when we try and live consistently with the hope that we have.

8. We spoil our appetite for this hope by pursuing other hopes this side of the new creation.

9. We have not pleaded with Christ in prayer to pour his love into our hearts through the Spirit.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

After reading these words my usual first reaction is to beat up on myself for not loving God’s community more each day and in more earthy practical ways. And in one sense that’s not a wrong reaction – where there’s sin there needs to be a level of ‘beating up’ – Paul says he beats his body and makes it a slave to God.

What I often miss though is that this commandment presupposes what I like to call proximity. It presupposes that Christian communities will be loving each other in front of the world – in proximity to everyone else. That means our loving is supposed to be out on the street for everyone to see and not only inside the church building where the chosen few can see. I don’t think I beat myself up enough about proximity. I don’t think I’m deliberate enough about living out love publicly. Not in a kind of  ‘come and see me’ way, but in a ‘I’ve got to live a public life anyway so let me do it in love’ way. That means Christians hanging out together and loving each other publicly – public communal love (by that I don’t mean the kind of hippie free love, Woodstock vibe).

It’s like learning how to live normally all over again like everyone else – except you’re doing it in community and that community is infused by love.