October 30

Imagine you have only a few hours to live. Even though everyone, including yourself, knows it, no one else wants to accept it or believe it. What would you say to them? How do you want them to remember you? The words we say in those last few hours are probably not going to change the opinions they’ve developed of us over a lifetime of experiences. But, hopefully, what we say in parting will cement in their minds how we’ve tried to live.
“Dear children, how brief are these moments before I must go away and leave you!” (John 13:33). Jesus knew full well what he was talking about. Jesus was well aware of what was about to happen to him, even if his disciples weren’t. “So now I am giving you a new command-ment: Love each other” (13:34). Was it really a new commandment? In terms of time, that commandment had first been given by God many hundreds of years earlier to the Hebrew nation. “Never seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone, but love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). And through the centuries God’s people had constantly expressed love for one another, even as we have in the centuries since Jesus repeated this command to his disciples. What was new, was Jesus’ example as he demonstrated the full definition of love. “Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (vss.34&35). It would be many days before Jesus’ disciples finally realized what he was teaching them in that moment. Not until after Jesus suffered and died, not until after Jesus resurrected from the grave, not until after Jesus ascended into heaven, and not until after Jesus sent his Holy Spirit to his disciples would the reality of that moment and that teaching truly overwhelm them. “I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Counselor as my representative - - and by the Counselor I mean the Holy Spirit - - he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I myself have told you” (John 14:25&26).
When we truly love someone, we want to give to that individual. God gave His Son to us because He loved us (John 3:16). Jesus gave his life to us because he loved us (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; I Timothy 2:6). Christ’s example of love should be the light illuminating the way we unselfishly love others (John 13:15). Jesus is not referring to a “new” commandment in the sense that the commandment had never been given before, but “new” in the sense that it had rarely been practiced before. And that love will be so radically different from how the world practices love, that it “will prove to the world you are my disciples” (13:35). So, how does your love differ from that of the rest of the world (Matthew 5:43-48)? What are some attitudes we might start exhibiting and some things we might start doing that would prove to the rest of the world that our love is a reflection of Christ’s love?