Matthew 25:40, 45
Jesus commands us to love one another. This is found all throughout the Bible but is accentuated especially in the New Testament. There are many commands in the New Testament and almost all of them have to do with loving your neighbor or brothers and sisters in Christ in some fashion. One might even ask if loving your brothers and sisters in Christ is necessary for salvation. One example that makes this explicit is Matthew 25:31-46. There are two notable words of Jesus I want to focus on here that act to wrap up Jesus' argument rather succinctly.
Matthew 25:40, 45
"And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’"
What I want to get across here is that loving others is NOT optional for the Christian. If you are a sincere born-again Christian you must see that Christians today in the west and in America tend to be pretty terrible at loving their brothers and sisters in Christ. There is so much infighting that it honestly breaks my heart. One such debate is between Christians who are Calvinists versus Christians that believe in Libertarian Free Will. Now if you are not familiar with these two camps, let me provide some definitions so you can understand.
Calvinism teaches that it is to, by, and in God alone to choose who is saved or not. Calvinists are Monergists which means they believe God does all the work in salvation. Conversely to that, there are other branches of Christianity that believe that man has to rightly choose God of their own Free Will to be Christians. These people are Synergists which means they believe God enables the person to be saved by the prompting of the Holy Spirit and man has to choose Christ. Many of these people believe it is a joint effort between God and man that allows one to be saved.
The biggest difference between these two orthodox groups of Christianity is in what kind of grace does God offers to people. Calvinists believe in Irresistible Grace and Historic Arminians believe in Prevenient Grace. The difference here is that Irresistible Grace is only given to God's elect whereas Prevenient Grace is given universally. With Irresistible Grace, God's grace to the elect is irresistible whereas Prevenient Grace is resistible.
I myself have struggled to make sense of these differences. One thing I can say for sure is that Christians today seem to be at a crossroads. Further, there is a lacking of respect towards one another between these two (and other) camps. From my point of view, these really should only be seen as convictions of the faith rather than a bedrock of a difference of faith. There has been a bunch of mud flung from both sides.
My point here in bringing this up and how it relates to what Christ said about the sheep and the goats found in the passage I quoted is that if you find yourself not willing to love your brothers and sisters in Christ from the other side, then you are in danger. If you let these spiffs get in the way of loving others, then you are the one who needs to check yourself before you wreck yourself. If you cannot say to yourself, "I would give, visit, or care for a person from the other camp of Christianity" then I would even go so far as to say you are in danger of hellfire! Christ does not mince his words when you say, "‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness,’" (Matthew 7:23).
I really hope we can find common ground in the evangelical church in America or I truly believe that the Evangelical Church will no longer be able to be identified as such, but rather that there will be a split and we will then have two (or more) different factions of Christianity waring between each other which could end up lasting for centuries.
In all this, I urge you to be kind. Do not look to start fights and do not be a people of division, but of peace. For God desires all of us to be gentle and humble, not thinking much of ourselves that we would offend others who believe most of the same things we do. Go out and talk about these things with your brothers and sisters in Christ, but if it prevents you from loving them and causes you to cast judgment on them, then consider not saying anything at all.
God bless you. Until next time.