If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember Captain and Tennille — a married duo with a ridiculously catchy hit that topped the charts and won a Grammy. "Love Will Keep Us Together" made forever feel effortless. For the younger crowd, click the link for a glimpse of how music used to sound — and how optimism used to look.They don’t make songs like that anymore.There is a forever love — and it really does hold us together. And it’s summed up in three simple words.And as it turns out, they don’t make love like that either. Love didn’t actually keep Captain and Tennille together. They divorced in 2014 after almost four decades, reminding us that the world’s idea of lasting love is fragile, conditional, and almost always temporary.So ... happy Valentine’s?Well, scripture offers something entirely different. There is a forever love — and it really does hold us together. And it’s summed up in three simple words:Love one another.That’s it. It sounds easy. But it isn’t — because we are saints who still sin. And when we turn inward, even subtly, we fail to love one another the way Christ commands. So let’s unpack what He actually meant.Love your neighbor vs. love one anotherSo how does “love one another” differ from “love your neighbor”?We tend to think of a neighbor as someone who lives nearby. But Jesus was asked that exact question and answered it with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). From His explanation, we learn that a neighbor is anyone in need who crosses our path. Loving our neighbor, then, is about how we treat those who are not yet part of God’s family.But “one another” means something more specific.Throughout the New Testament, “one another” almost always refers to fellow believers — our brothers and sisters in Christ. Practically speaking, one another is your church family. Which is one of many reasons you need a church family.What 'love one another' actually looks likeThe New Testament gives us roughly 50 instructions for how we are to treat one another — commands that spell out what love looks like in real life. Someone helpfully compiled them all in one place, and it’s worth reading through carefully.Not surprisingly, the most frequently repeated command in that list is this one: love one another.And when we wonder how to do that — especially when some people are genuinely hard to love — the answer is found in the rest of the list. Things like:Serve one anotherForgive one anotherEncourage one anotherPray for one anotherThese aren’t abstract ideals. They’re concrete actions. And as we prayerfully consider them, the Holy Spirit may well bring specific people to mind.Or consider this, from Romans 12:“Let love be without hypocrisy — by abhorring what is evil, clinging to what is good, being devoted to one another in brotherly love, giving preference to one another in honor ... contributing to the needs of the saints, pursuing hospitality” (Romans 12:9-13).That’s a lot of practical instruction packed into a few verses. And hospitality, in particular, is an area where most of us fall woefully short.This kind of love doesn’t stay theoretical. It shows up in schedules, homes, meals, and patience.Why Jesus called this command 'new'In John 13:34, Jesus says something that can sound puzzling at first:“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.”After all, the people of the Old Testament had always been called to love. The Law itself was built on loving God and loving others. So what was different?“... even as I have loved you.”That’s the new part.Jesus didn’t just tell the disciples what to do — He showed them how to do it. For three years, He walked with them, served them, corrected them, bore with them, and loved them patiently.And then — immediately after washing their feet, including Judas’ — He issued this new command, on the eve of His betrayal and death.Love like I do.The cost — and the witnessThis is a staggering standard. And we can only love this way to the extent that we understand how deeply we ourselves are loved.When we daily enter His presence, absorb His Word, and receive His love, something changes. Only then are we able to love one another in a way that looks unmistakably different to the world.Which is exactly the point.“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).Before the world sees our love for our neighbors, it must see our love for one another.The hard realityLet’s be honest: Some believers are hard to love. Annoying. Irritating. The kind of people you quietly hope won’t sit next to you.And sometimes, we are those people.None of us are easy to love all the time. So we depend on the Holy Spirit to produce the fruit that makes us both more loving and more lovable. As Hannah Williamson has observed, the exercise of working out how to love one another is a “gritty training ground for loving the wider world.”In other words, loving one another helps train us to love our neighbors. But first — the lost must witness our love for one another.So in obedience to our Lord, let’s draw closer to Him so we can fulfill this beautiful task He’s given us — to love one another better.A love that will, in fact, keep us all together.Saint Valentine would be proud.

Today’s dating landscape leaves a lot of Christian singles feeling isolated, lonely, and hopeless. Dating apps have replaced organic meetings; casual texting has supplanted face-to-face conversation; and commitment has been demonized by the culture as restrictive and archaic.So, what’s a single Christian man or woman to do?That’s the question Allie Beth Stuckey and fellow podcaster and author Christian Bevere dove into on a special Valentine’s Day episode of “Relatable.” After graduating college, Bevere found herself in the same situation many young Christian men and women find themselves in today: deeply desiring marriage but feeling directionless.The church, she says, wasn’t very helpful, often watering down dating advice to, “Find someone that’s cute and loves Jesus.”So Bevere, just 21 years old at the time, took dating matters into her own hands. What she did changed her life.“I just got a Bible, a brown leather Bible on Amazon, and I said, ‘This is going to be a Bible for my future husband. I’m going to pray for him daily,”’ she tells Allie.While many people pray for their future spouses, Bevere took it a step further by “infusing” her prayers with Scripture.“I’d go to Timothy, I’d go to Psalms, and I’d look at how Titus or David and these men of God were walking with the Lord, the attributes they carried, and I’d start praying those over my future husband,” she says.“I really started to war for him and intercede for this person I hadn’t met yet.”Two years later, on her wedding day, Bevere presented this special annotated Bible to her husband. In the days following their marriage, Bevere’s husband, Arden, read through the dated prayers and letters she had written to him.“He would look through, and he’d say, ‘You were praying for me on this date. ... I was going through such a struggle of a season at that time,”’ she reminisces.“When our prayers are Spirit-led, they’re Scripture-based, there’s so much power that we won’t even know, maybe not even Earth-side, but it’s so poignant and powerful.”Today, Bevere’s platform is dedicated to empowering Christian women (especially singles) to discover their identity in Christ, pray boldly and intentionally for their future or current marriage, heal from past hurts and shame through God’s redemption, prepare their hearts for godly relationships, and trust God fully with their love story.Check her out on her “Dear Future Husband” podcast or through her books “Break Up with What Broke You” and “Future Husband, Present Prayers.”To hear Allie and Christian Bevere’s full interview, watch the episode above.Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Reading Hillary Clinton’s recent Atlantic essay, “MAGA’s War on Empathy,” I felt an emotion I did not expect: a sliver of sympathy, maybe even empathy, for her.Clinton ranks among the most ruthless political operators of the last century. She came within inches of the presidency, the prize she wanted most, only to lose to Donald Trump — a man she treated as an absurdity for much of the 2016 campaign.Perhaps the most problematic element of Clinton’s discussion of empathy is her unserious understanding of Christian teachings.It would be easy to dismiss her Atlantic broadside as cynical posturing. She loads it with politicized misrepresentation, then uses Minneapolis as her stage for accusing the Trump GOP of cruelty. Still, the piece reveals something more important than spin: It exposes the moral core of today’s Democratic Party.If Clinton only wanted a talking point, she could have posted it on X or dashed off a short op-ed. She wrote 6,000 words because, to a meaningful extent, she means it. In that respect I differ from Pastor Joe Rigney, one of her targets, whose response was excellent.Clinton has pushed “empathy” for years. In her “basket of deplorables” speech, she described the need to “empathize” with the half of Trump’s supporters who weren’t racist, sexist, or xenophobic. After her defeat, she urged “radical empathy” in a 2017 Medium essay and argued that empathy belongs at the center of policy and politics — a theme she has repeated ever since.Yet she misunderstands both the GOP and empathy itself.Empathy, the left’s blind spotSurvey after survey shows liberals, not conservatives, struggling to extend empathy across political lines. Far more liberals than conservatives describe the other side as evil rather than misinformed or misguided. Liberals also report a greater willingness to cut conservatives out of friendships, business relationships, and civic life based solely on politics.Conservatives, in practice, empathize with liberals more readily than liberals empathize with conservatives.Clinton also misunderstands Trump. Private citizens who meet him one-on-one often praise his personal warmth. He calls people when they struggle. He spends extra time with victims and families. When he speaks harshly in public, he usually does so for deliberate political reasons. In political warfare, Trump often uses his feel for his opponents’ psychology to press the exact buttons that work.Immigration provides another example. Clinton imagines that people who support deportations “delight” in suffering. Most do not. Many empathize with illegal immigrants — and refuse to let unbounded empathy shut off their brains.I take a hard line on immigration. I support deporting every person here illegally and sharply reducing legal immigration as well. Yet I can sympathize with someone who has lived here for years, even decades, or someone brought here as a child. They have relationships. Many contribute in real ways. (Overall, illegal immigration produces a highly negative net impact.)Still, incentives matter. If a sympathetic story becomes a stay of deportation, we lose border control. Good leadership means making difficult, rational choices that benefit the nation, even when those choices impose real costs on individuals.Clinton praises Minnesota’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement vigilantes as a form of “neighborism,” essentially helping your neighbors regardless of background. She ignores the obvious: Many of the “neighbors” she celebrates include violent felons, child sex abusers, fraudsters, and other criminals.RELATED: Hillary’s attack backfires: Allie Beth Stuckey tells Glenn Beck that Clinton’s hit piece is a ‘badge of honor’ Blaze MediaThe mouth of the foolishClinton’s most revealing mistake involves Christianity. She accuses “far-right” Christian leaders who support Trump of discarding dignity, mercy, and compassion. Those virtues matter, but they do not exhaust Christian teaching. Mainline denominations that treat them as the whole faith have collapsed for a reason.Christian statesmanship requires balancing virtues. Some moments demand compassion; other moments demand a steel spine. That does not contradict empathy rightly understood. It recognizes biblical limits. An empathy that destroys a nation does not reflect scriptural compassion.Clinton’s Atlantic essay does not defend empathy. It weaponizes it, turning a virtue into a moral bludgeon and makes a nation into its target.Clinton attacks Trump, JD Vance, and their supporters for criticizing Rev. Mariann Budde, who used a post-inauguration service at Washington National Cathedral to lecture Trump on compassion for immigrants, the LGBTQ community, and other “marginalized” groups. The backlash did not begin with disagreement over policy.Budde took a moment of honor and turned it into a scolding. She showed no empathy for Trump or the millions who oppose her views for sincere reasons. She practiced selective “empathy,” stripped of prudence and judgment. Trump put it plainly afterward: She brought her church into politics “in a very ungracious way.”Clinton also targets BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey and her book “Toxic Empathy,” which Clinton calls “an oxymoron.” “I don’t know if the phrase reflects moral blindness or moral bankruptcy, but either way it’s appalling,” she writes. Clinton again refuses empathy toward her opponents. A serious engagement with Stuckey’s argument would start with the subtitle: “How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion.” Stuckey does not attack compassion in principle; she attacks its political hijacking. Clinton responds with a pious sneer about what she believes Jesus preached “in his short time on Earth.”Even when Clinton praises Erika Kirk’s radical forgiveness, she shows theological shallowness. Christians must forgive personal wrongs when repentance occurs. The magistrate must pursue justice for the community. Clinton’s kindergarten version of Christian morality has hollowed out the churches that adopted it.Clinton claims to be shocked that 25% of Republicans and 40% of self-described Christian nationalists agree with the statement that “empathy is a dangerous emotion that undermines our ability to set up a society guided by God’s truth.” She should not feel shocked. Many Americans have watched the left weaponize empathy to advance policies that punish citizens and reward lawlessness.RELATED: Wokeness runs on ungratefulness — and normal people are over it Photo by Marcus Ingram/Getty ImagesEmpathy without judgment becomes cruelty“MAGA sees a world of vengeance, scorn, and humiliation, and cannot imagine generosity or solidarity,” Clinton argues. She gets it backward. Solidarity with my fellow Americans drives my willingness to fight for their interests on immigration and beyond. Surface-level empathy often conflicts with long-term social health, even when Clinton and her allies sneer at those who say so.Clinton hopes conservatives “recognize the humanity” of an illegal immigrant family and decide that mass deportation “has gone too far.” I recognize that humanity already. If mere recognition of humanity dictated policy, I could not justify closing the border to anyone except the worst criminals. That path ends in disaster.If MAGA people offer heartfelt hugs to illegal immigrants while placing them on deportation flights, will Democrats stop obstructing enforcement? I doubt it.A wise Christian leader shows mercy after victory in war. When unchecked immigration tears the nation’s social fabric, wise leaders stand firm for the long-term interests of their people and reject emotional manipulation — a Clinton specialty for decades.Clinton’s Wellesley commencement address in 1969 shows how deep this runs:Part of the problem with just empathy with professed goals is that empathy doesn’t do us anything. ... The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible. ... We’re not interested in social reconstruction; it’s human reconstruction. ... But we also know that to be educated, the goal of it must be human liberation.In that undergraduate statement, spoken more than 50 years ago, the roots of Clinton’s “empathy” show themselves. Her embrace of what Thomas Sowell called the “unconstrained vision” defines the modern left: politics as alchemy, liberation as entitlement, human nature as clay.That vision cannot survive contact with limits — so it recasts limits as cruelty and calls dissent “hate.” Clinton’s Atlantic essay does not defend empathy. It weaponizes it, turning a virtue into a moral bludgeon and making a nation into its target.Editor’s note: A longer version of this article was published originally at the American Mind.