Tonight will bring us the third evening in our annual Gospel Crusade. Last night we heard Scott Roderick (preacher for the brethren that meet at the Oak church of Christ, in El Paso) preach about the love of Christ. It’s a subject one can never hear enough about, and we’re thankful to have heard it last night.
Listen to the Master:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.John 13:34-35
Now it is the case that there is nothing “new” about the command to love. It has existed in written form as early as the Law of Moses. Yet here Jesus applies an adjective to it: “new.”
In fact, the word “new” here is “kainos” in the Greek; a word which means “new in terms of quality.” Though the command is not new, the way in which the command is to be carried out is. Jesus is preparing to do something has never been done before: He will offer Himself, purely selflessly, as a sacrifice for a lost and ungrateful world. With that measure of love about to be demonstrated, Jesus took a moment to tell His disciples (and, by proxy, us) that He expects those He loves (which is everyone) to follow in His footsteps and demonstrate the same high-quality level of love.
There is nothing hard about loving those who love us. There is nothing especially challenging about “not hating” those we are not close with. The challenge and the commandment, however, is for us to love no matter who the person is. We are not to let the other person’s character or attitude or actions influence how much or how little we love them.
In fact, that’s the Golden Rule in a nutshell:
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:12
There are other religions that have their own, similar versions of the “Golden Rule” but this teaching by Jesus is unique. Whereas others condense the expression to “don’t do to others what you don’t want them doing to you” Jesus’ command is much more positive. The other command is approached from the standpoint of what we don’t do. “Don’t do this because you wouldn’t want him doing it to you” etc. Jesus however preaching a “doing” religion of love. “DO to others what you wish they would do to you.” In other words, Jesus taught us to do good to someone even if they never do good for us.
And He demonstrated that, in the most ultimate way, by dying for us.
Aren’t you thankful for all that Jesus did?
He demonstrated love…and you can too!
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