To Love or Not to Love?

What is God's standard towards serving others in love? We (the highschool fellowship and I) have looked into this pretty far, and have a question to ponder: is indifference the same as hate in GOd's eyes? In Matthew 25:31 - 46, we see the story of the sheep and the goats. God told those who didn't serve others in love by catering to their needs (hunger, thirst, belonging, clothing, care and comfort in verses 35-36) to "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." Later on, it was confirmed that "they will go away to eternal punishment".

From the outset, the typical Christians say, "Yeah, that makes sense...what's wrong with that? God punished them for their sin." Exactly, but what implications does it have on us? This passage shows that indifference to the needs of others is sin. I'm gonna make a really bold statement: If we are indifferent to the needs of others, we are hating them. 1 John 1:5 says, "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." There is NO middle ground!! We're either in the light or in the darkness! Either we love our neighbours, or we don't!! In the eyes of God, those who did not love their neighbour in Matt 25 suffered the worst punishment thinkable: eternal punishment. It doesn't get any lower than that. So if indifference leads to such severe punishment, how is that any different from actually hating your neighbour?

It is black or white. You love, or you don't. John puts it this way: "9Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him^[c] to make him stumble." You're either in the light or in the darkness.

So how should we react? Well, personally, i'm ashamed because i've often been so indifferent. I used to think that if i loved other people i was an obedient, good Christian, but if i didn't do the "extra-curriculars", i was still an OK Christian, as long as i didn't sin too much. But what God says is this: If you call yourself a Christian, not only must you stay pure, you must...MUST...love your neighbour, because anything short of that and it's the same as the darkness of hate.