JESUS’ LOVE MANDATE

February 26th, 2024

How do we possess and show the true love of Christ? There are days that we are mindful of it and there are days that we forget it. Nevertheless the mandate and the challenge still exist. Hide this Word in your heart and may our Devotional Team inspire you to apply God’s Word!

SCRIPTURE: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." John 13:34 NASB
SCRIPTURE: "If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good. 4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away." 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 NASB

That much has been spoken and written regarding God’s love is universally understood. We will no doubt see the commonly upheld John 3:16 banner or two across the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas this month, reminding everyone that “God SO LOVED the world that He gave His only begotten Son….” Despite this oft-quoted Bible verse, how conscious are we Christ followers of the fact that our refusal to indiscriminately love one another is a vote to perpetually quench God’s Spirit? {I CONFESS to you, dear reader, my guilt in this area, and I choose to REPENT while there is still time}. Did not our Lord command us to quench NOT the Spirit [1 Thessalonians 5:19]? Does not the Spirit command us to “owe no one anything EXCEPT to love one another [Romans 13:8]? He who loves another, the Word continues, has fulfilled the law! If we love ONLY those who love us, what MORE do we to others who make no profession of knowing Jesus as Lord [Matthew 5:46]?

Inasmuch as biblical love is, in the practical sense, more VERB than noun—the latter commonly associated with an exchange of greeting card “warm fuzzies” or a high degree of AFFECT—I am convinced that ONLY with the Spirit’s help can we daily purpose in our heart to DO lovingly by all with whom we interact. Inevitably there will be those who cross us or who may frustrate our walking in Christ-like love toward them, but these inevitabilities, common to all, do NOT let us off the hook. Rather, these are the times in which we MUST earnestly INVOKE the Spirit’s help by recalling in a split- second’s notice those powerful commands noted above!

We stumble sometimes in regard to loving the unlovable (or hard-to-love folks in our midst); but then, this is why we are wise to daily meditate upon His Word, reminding ourselves of the biblical admonishment to LOVE ALL who are made in our Lord God’s image. HE loved US when we were yet unlovable! Did He not? This is a supernatural feat, is it not? And isn’t that why Jesus died and rose again-- to make us saved supernatural individuals who’ve been transformed into the image of His beloved Son [Romans 12:2]? May this be our holiest daily ambition!

PRAYER: Father God, thank You for seeing us not as who we presently are---works in progress in this area of [agape] love—but as who You’ve ordained us to become—sons and daughters who constantly reflect the love of Jesus. AMEN!
By Sis. Denise Diggs