40 Days Pondering the Fruit of the Spirit
Dr Jim Brown's TruNorth Devotional
40 Days PONDERING the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Day 12 | LOVE
40 Days PONDERING the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Day 12 | LOVE
LOVE
John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (NKJV)
Jesus spoke these words to His disciples just after they had finished observing Passover and just hours before Jesus would be arrested, tried, and crucified. Image what you might say to your family if you knew that you would be dying soon.
But Jesus’ words carry a more long-term message for us all today – WE are to love one another too. And by doing so, Jesus said that “all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Why do you think Jesus added that part? He had already told them WHAT the “new commandment” was – to “love one another,” why add that part?
We can only speculate, but… if you look around today – at the world, at our country, at our communities – the one thing I think we see in abundance is division, distrust, dislike, and disregard for one another… not love. And as the old song lyric says, “What the world needs now, is love, sweet love, that’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”
In John 17 – when Jesus is praying to His Father – He asks that WE (all His followers… then and now) would “be one.”
“… that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21)
The world needs love… and is looking in all the wrong places. They should be able to SEE and experience it whenever Followers of Jesus gather.
Prayer: Lord, help us display the kind of agape love to one another as Jesus did to His followers. And may unbelievers be attracted to YOU because of the love they see in us. Amen.
John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (NKJV)
Jesus spoke these words to His disciples just after they had finished observing Passover and just hours before Jesus would be arrested, tried, and crucified. Image what you might say to your family if you knew that you would be dying soon.
But Jesus’ words carry a more long-term message for us all today – WE are to love one another too. And by doing so, Jesus said that “all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Why do you think Jesus added that part? He had already told them WHAT the “new commandment” was – to “love one another,” why add that part?
We can only speculate, but… if you look around today – at the world, at our country, at our communities – the one thing I think we see in abundance is division, distrust, dislike, and disregard for one another… not love. And as the old song lyric says, “What the world needs now, is love, sweet love, that’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.”
In John 17 – when Jesus is praying to His Father – He asks that WE (all His followers… then and now) would “be one.”
“… that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (John 17:21)
The world needs love… and is looking in all the wrong places. They should be able to SEE and experience it whenever Followers of Jesus gather.
Prayer: Lord, help us display the kind of agape love to one another as Jesus did to His followers. And may unbelievers be attracted to YOU because of the love they see in us. Amen.