What’s the number one characteristic of Christianity in your view? If we asked this question to a number of people, it would be interesting to hear their replies. We might get answers like, “It’s a religion whose adherents follow Christ,” or “They meet in churches,” or simply “It’s a religion, but I don’t know much about it.” We can only guess at the kind of answers we might get, but we can be sure of the defining characteristic presented by Jesus. John reports Jesus as saying to His followers: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Love was always to be the most prominent evidence of true Christian faith, but it's not the first thing that strikes a visitor to many churches today. Jesus taught love above everything else, making it clear that all God’s commandments rested on love for God and for one another (Matthew 22:40). He pointed out that its highest expression was found in the giving of one’s life for another (John 15:13) and He modelled this by giving His own life for humanity at the Cross. Yeshua intended that His ekklesia would be a place where love finds us.