Meerkats “love one another from the heart.”

Perhaps you’ve seen these furry creatures following one another around dirt mounds at nature reserves or at the zoo. Meerkats live in protective clans. They coach, care for, and put their lives at risk for each other. While one stands guard, the others safely forage for food. Older meerkats coach young ones to hunt. They even guard meerkat babies that aren’t their own, putting their lives at risk when snakes or eagles approach.

Meerkats aren’t independent. Their eyes are always on the lookout for their meerkat neighbor.

Hebrews 10:24-25 contains a request that God’s children build a loving community, one built on being patient with our Christian neighbor who makes mistakes, being kind even when they fail to be, not envying their situation or their things and not flaunting ours, not being rude in word, or tone of voice, and not lashing out in anger. Instead, we are to be ready to protect, trust, and hope for all our brothers and sisters in Christ.

When we fail, we will try again and again, using “Jesus math,” forgiving “seventy times seven” times (see Matthew 18:22). We can do it.

We can love better than the meerkat; we can love like Jesus.