“If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!” – 1 Corinthians 16:22

I was a little taken aback to note that while the entire letter was dictated to scribes, today’s word, ‘let him be accursed,’ came from the apostle Paul’s own hand writing.

A man of God should be blessing the people and not saying such things to them, so I thought.

But just imagine this small house church in Corinth.

Outside, the city and the neighborhood hum with devotion to other powers: Aphrodite’s temple on the heights, meat from idol sacrifices in the market.

Inside, a congregation is unsettled.

It is split into factions, tolerating scandal, suing one another, and doubting the resurrection.

Then Paul takes the pen from his scribe and writes, in his own hand, one blunt sentence: “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed.”

Please take note of that little word ‘anyone’.

Your title, social status or and past credentials are irrelevant.

The word anathema, in older Greek, meant something dedicated and set up in a temple.

The Greek Old Testament used it for the Hebrew herem: what is devoted to God and removed from human claim, often for destruction.

Jericho was herem, and Achan, who pocketed its plunder, brought judgment on his own household (Joshua 6–7).

The New Testament keeps that edge.

Paul uses the word against anyone preaching a counterfeit gospel (Galatians 1:8–9).

To be anathema is to be cut off from God’s people and left exposed to His judgment.

Notice who is named. Not the weak, the doubting, or the struggling.

Paul names the one who persistently refuses Christ.

This curse is less a sentence handed down than a road a person chooses, and it ends outside the life God offers.

The love Paul has in mind is personal attachment, not mere agreement.

Every day before you go to bed, ask honestly: Lord, do I love you, and did I show it today?

By the lakeshore, Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” and each answer was met with a task: feed my sheep (John 21:15–17).

Love for Christ is personal individual, since no one loves by proxy or inherits it from godly parents.

You won’t say that our family or at our Church we love the Lord; you can only say, “I truly love the Lord Jesus.”

It is also action rather than mood: Jesus said; “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

And it rests on what Christ has done, His deity, His atoning death, and His resurrection (Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 15:3–4).

That is why a heart whose love for the Lord has grown cold is graver than a muddled doctrine.

Doctrine can be corrected along the way.

A heart gone cold has walked away from the center of the Gospel.

Is Paul’s warning is as urgent today as it was in the days of Corinth?

Well, our contemporary world prizes belonging without allegiance, and a church can be busy, branded, and friendly while Paul’s one question goes unasked.

Notice where the curse sits: just after the ‘holy kiss.’

The family’s embrace is real, but it has a center.

Without love for Christ, the kiss becomes mere performance for the cameras, and Judas Iscariot shows what a kiss can hide.

A church that welcomes everyone yet never asks whether they love Jesus has quietly traded its Lord for a social club.

So, how do we love him this week?

Open one Gospel passage each morning and speak it back to him before you touch your phone.

 Obey the one thing you have been postponing: the apology, the debt, the habit.

Gather weekly with His people as a servant, not a spectator.

Give somewhere it costs you.

Name Christ at work and on social media without apology or shame.

Every day before you go to bed, ask honestly: Lord, do I love you, and did I show it today?