Power Verses…… ".....If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11)

Look down at your sports shirt for a moment---is there a recognisable emblem on the front?  Or a certain distinguishing mark on your sports shoes? Do your jeans bear the mark that sets them apart from the rest? If you are drinking your favourite coffee while reading this article, no doubt you can pick it out in any supermarket by the instantly recognisable label. The same could be said for your favourite breakfast cereal.

 This is called “branding”….a marketing strategy by which products are given their distinctive identities. A brand is a collection of images and ideas that instantly identify a particular produce or company.

 Companies are no longer interested in creating a product, they want to establish a brand….a distinctive, instantly recognisable identity that strikes positive cords in the consumer market, and can be extended to new and modified products. Branding attempts to sell a “feeling” as much as a product. Companies spend millions on just the right symbol, slogan, colour scheme and package designs necessary for branding a product, an author, a company, or a concept successfully.

 What about a brand called YOU?

 What’s distinctive about you? What sort of “feeling” do you produce in others when they think of you? What does your appearance, attitudes, or activities communicate to others? What makes you different?

 Long before Nike, Apple Computers, or McDonald’s, Jesus Christ understood the importance of branding, and He designed a particular “look” for His disciples. He wanted to give them a simple, but instantly recognisable identity. This He outlined when He explained:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34, 35)

That’s a brand more powerful than any ever devised by the most internationally recognized marketing and advertising company. It is so important, that without it, nothing rings true in the life of the Christian.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta is without doubt one of the best known and respected Christians of the 20^th century. Her love and compassion for the poor were truly “Christ-like,” always displaying the “mark” of Christ’s “New Commandment.”

Her care for the downtrodden, the hungry and homeless were legendary. “When I pick up a person from the street hungry,” she said, “I give them a plate of rice, a piece of bread, shelter and a prayer.”

In one of her many interviews she spoke of those who were materially poor as being very wonderful people, and she gave these examples.

”One evening we went out and we picked up four people from the street.
One of them was in a most terrible condition. I told the Sisters: ‘You take care of the other three; I will take care of the one who looks the worst.’  So I did for her all that my love could do. I put her in bed, and there was such a beautiful smile on her face. She took hold of my hand, as she said in a whisper, ‘this is the first time in my life I have slept in a bed with clean sheets, thank you’ later that night she died.”

“I could not help but examine my conscience before her. And I asked myself: ‘What would I say if I were in her place?’  My answer was very simple. I would have tried to draw a little attention to myself. I would have said: I am hungry, I am dying, I am cold, I am in pain, or something.   But this poor woman gave me so much more she gave me her grateful love. And she died with a smile on her face.”

“Then there was another occasion,” she remembered. “We picked a man up from the drain, his body half-eaten by worms, and after we had brought him to the home, his only words were, ‘For years I have lived like an animal in the street, but now I am going to die like an angel, loved and cared for.’  “Then, after we had removed all the worms from his body, all he said, with a big smile on his face, was: ‘Sister, I am going home to God’ – and he died.”

“It was so wonderful" she said, "to see the greatness of that man who could speak like that without blaming anybody, without comparing anything.  This is the greatness of people who are spiritually rich even when they are materially poor.”

As Christians, to lay down our lives for someone doesn’t always mean that we’re literally going to die for them, though that’s what Christ did for us. But it means we ‘die’ to ourselves and live to meet the needs of others in the name of Christ.

In a world such as ours, with all the pressures, problems, uncertainty, persecution and stress, how can we, as followers of Christ, do anything less?

Strive to be instantly recognisable by identifying with the “mark” of Jesus, ‘love for others.’

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