When babies are born, hospital staff immediately check for vital signs. A good breathing, a robust cry, an adequate weight are all indicators of the good physical health of a newborn. In the same way, vital spiritual signs can tell us whether or not you are in good health. The most important vital sign is love.

When we are born again as believers in the Lord Jesus, we receive a new heart and a new spirit. Nothing less than the Spirit of Christ residing in us. Without Him, there is no true Christian experience. "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to it" (Romans 8: 9).

To the extent that the Holy Spirit in us is God and to the extent that God is love, then the essence of him who dwells in us is divine love. It is not surprising that Jesus said : "By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35).

When the apostle Paul wrote to Colossus' church, he described to them how he had thanked God when he had learned their "love for all who belong to God" (Colossians 1: 4 Sower version). Note the spiritual health of this congregation. It was not measured in the number of people attending meetings or the magnificence of its buildings, but by what really matters to God : love. Not just love for some people that is easy to love or with the same ethnic background. No, he rejoiced in their reputation for loving all who belonged to God.

Too often, if people are "different" - which means they are not the same color or ethnicity as us, or they are not part of our church or denomination - their Difficult situations rarely touch our hearts. God sent Jesus into a world that was far more different from His divine nature than we can conceive. His Holy Spirit enables us to do this: "Become therefore the imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as also Christ loved us and gave himself for us as an offering and sacrifice to God in perfume of sweet smell" (Ephesians 5: 1-2 Darby version).

Jim Cymbala