July 20, 2023

Scripture: John 13:34-35 – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

What it means

This is near the end for The Lord Jesus, and He is trying to prepare His disciples for His imminent departure. After 3 years of teaching them new concepts, He springs yet another “new command” on them – pretty simple, and yet profound at the same time. “Love one another.” Yep, that’s pretty much it. Jesus gave them the template to go by, and assured them that that would be what sets them apart from the rest of the world…“if you love one another.” He follows this up with informing Simon Peter that he would deny Jesus three times, which had to sting both of them, but it never affected the depth of Jesus’ love towards Peter.

What it means to me

In the end, Jesus knew what had to happen, and was resigned to that fact…and it actually proved to be another good example of real love not being contingent upon our performance, or conditional in any way. We tend to be a bit more selective as human beings in only wanting to love those people who are nice to us, or act just like us. However, the implication of what Jesus tells the disciples is that we are supposed to love without limits…without conditions…and without holding back. Is that always easy to do? Uh, no…sometimes it’s the hardest thing we will ever have to do, and yet, this is a commandment, not a polite suggestion. “Love one another”…period. So again, let’s look different to the rest of the world – let’s just love one another, whether it necessarily comes easy to us or not…and in doing so, “everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”

Love you guys – take good care of my good friend Emmit Rawls on Sunday as he comes to share the message. I know he will be a blessing to you.

In Christ,

Brian