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January/February
ONE ANOTHER
John 13:34-35
“A new commandment I give to
you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you,
that you also love one another. 35 By this all men will
know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one
another.” NASU
John 15:12-13, “This is My
commandment, that you love one another, just as I have
loved you. “Greater love has no one than this, that
one lay down his life for his friends.”
NASU
Remember the lawyer’s question of Jesus in Matthew
22:36, “Teacher, which is the
great commandment in the Law?”
Jesus, reply was, “Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy
mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.”
NASU
We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we are to
love our fellow-Christians as Christ loved us, and that
is far more than we love ourselves.
Christ loved us better than he loved himself, for he
loved us so much that he gave himself for us. This is a
nobler kind of love altogether to the love which we are
to manifest to our neighbors. The love to our neighbors
is a love of benevolence, but this is a love of affinity
and close relationship, and involves a higher degree of
self-sacrifice than was enjoined by the Law of Moses.
The old commandment was backed by this declaration, “I
am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the
land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”
Exodus 20:2.
The Israelite was to obey that law because of the
redemption which God had wrought for His nation in Egypt,
but we are commanded to love one another because Christ
has redeemed us from a far worse bondage than that of
Egypt, and with a far costlier sacrifice than the
offering up of myriads of sacrificial lambs.
1 Corinthians 5:7 reminds us, “Christ
our Passover lamb is sacrificed for us.”
He has brought us out from under the iron yoke of sin and
Satan, and has broken our bonds asunder.
Our enemies have pursued us, but He has destroyed them at
the sea, even at the Red Sea. He has redeemed us with His
own heart's blood, and therefore His new commandment
comes to us with the greatest possible force, “That
ye love one another as I have loved you.”
I am bound, as a man, to love my fellow-man because he is
a man; but I am bound, as a regenerate man, to love my
fellow-Christian still more because he also is
regenerate. The ties of blood bought relations ought to
be recognized by us far more than they are.
We are too apt to forget that God, according to Acts
17:26 “has made of one blood
all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth”; so that, by the common
tie of blood, we are all brethren.
But, the ties of grace are far stronger than the ties of
blood. If you are really born of God, you are brothers by
a brotherhood that is stronger even than the natural
brotherhood which according to the flesh may be separated
eternally.
It is a very blessed thing when we are able to love one
another, because the grace that is in any one of us sees
the grace that is in another, and discerns in that other,
not the flesh and blood of the Savior, but such a
resemblance to Christ, that it must love that other one
for Christ’s sake.
As it is true that, if we are of the world, the world
will love its own, so is it true that, if we are of the
Spirit, the Spirit will love His own. The whole redeemed
family of Christ is firmly bound together.
Born of God ourselves, we keep looking out to see others
who have been “born again, not
of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible”
according to 1 Peter 1:23; and when we do see them, we
cannot help loving them.
There is a bond of union between us at once. The love
which Christ commands his followers to have towards one
another is not the ordinary love of man to man as such,
but the love of the new-born man to the new-born man.
Let us, who love the Lord, love each other fervently in
that sense. This is a love which arises out of a totally
new union. A man, who is a Christian, belongs to a very
special family. That family circle does not comprehend
the whole human race; it is a family inside the larger
human family, yet separated from it by an inner spiritual
life. We are brethren because, in Christ, we are all in
one family; and hence it is that we are called to a new
kind of love.
If you are true Christians, you will not have the love of
worldly things; you cannot have it.
So then, cling the more closely to one another.
Whatever opposition you meet with from the outside, let
it only weld you into a firmer union one with the other.
We must hold together, we must be as one man, banded
together in closest fellowship.
There is much that is beautiful about all true
Christians, so try and search out their excellencies
rather than their defects.
If we, ourselves are in a right state of heart, we are
all the more likely to admire that which is good in
others.
We, who believe in Jesus, are going to live together in
heaven for ever and ever, so we may as well be good
friends while we are here.
See
you in service!
Pastor
Mike
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