Jesus Quotes: Empowered To Love

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one 

another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one

 another. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples,

 if you have love for one another.”
Jesus--John 13:34 & 35

         Jesus was habitually making things better.  One time he even said, "Look I am making all things new."  Revelation 21:5 (John Speaking.) Years prior to saying such words, he was followed by crowds seeking something new. His miracles made lives new and well ... better. His words were words that were new, refreshing and authoritative.  No one ever spoke like he spoke.  As a matter of fact, he spoke like no one had ever spoken before, with authority unequaled. Now, after John has written way over half of this gospel that he wrote about Jesus, and about whom he said, "And there also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." John 21:25, he begins to speak of what he calls "a new commandment."

     What makes this new?  Perhaps it was the first time he pointed the two most important commandments directly at his disciples, you and me and he tells us clearly that he wants us to heed his command.  He is staring us in the face and he is not asking us to consider doing this. He is actually demanding or commanding we do this. He wants us to love one another. Right?  No that is not right.  He tells us to love one another just as he loved and loves us. So he is getting deep here.  Our love for each other is to be the exemplified love that he demonstrated by example.  He loved/loves us enough to lay down his life for us.  He loved/loves us enough to serve us.  He loved us enough to listen to us.  He loved/loves us enough to give us life.  

     How can we do this?  How can we demonstrate such love?  We can't.  But He can.  Let's surrender and let him grow his love in us through us and up out of us.  As Della Reese once said, "It's a God thing Honey."  John gives us the plan when he says, "Beloved let us love one another.  For love comes from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God.  For God IS love." 1 John 4:7-8

     John must have surely thought about Jesus  "New" command, when he wrote these words in 1 John. As he penned them, he was getting older.  And I know he had a lot of time to listen to the Holy Spirit speaking. Like Jesus he tells us to "love one another."  And I am sure he understood that loving meant loving like Jesus loved. The miracle of life he had experienced during those years must have revealed to him love's source and supply:  "Love comes from God."  So, he gives us God's plan for loving one another.  Go to the source of love, which is God.  Surrender to God and be born of God. Do so because in being born of God the miracle of love is born and actually produces the evidence that we have a relationship with God or "know God."  If we love it's clear we know God.  That's what John tells us.

     I would like to say something else:  Just as loving one another is evidence that we love God, love for fellow Christ-Followers produces an outward "proof."  Or as Jesus says, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."  How do other people know we follow Jesus? They know it by the love we demonstrate to one another. We don't need to be afraid we cannot live up to this command.  We need only to daily surrender to the one who IS love who will give us love as we place our faith in Christ.  He will take care of the rest.

     One of the biggest mistakes people make is to believe that they fall in love, and can keep conjuring it up somehow on their own. They somehow do not believe they have a choice in the matter.  When a person doesn't have the relationship of having received and experienced God's love, they do not have authentic love.  And no one can give away that which they do not have.  Love has only ONE source.  That source is God.  God is indeed not only the source of love.  God IS love, and He offers that love to you and me to give away; therefore, the only way to have authentic love and be able to give it away, friend, is by having a daily intimate relationship with God through Jesus.  Love being a fruit of His Holy Spirit will grow up and be produced in you and me in  this way. As we grow in God's grace you and I will grow in God's love.  And more and more "they" or those who are outside the body of Christ will know you and I are a Christ Followers by our love for one another ... a love grown in you and me by God Almighty.

SoJourner