40 Days of Prayer

The New Commandment

  
"A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:34-35 NIV

Three concepts to absorb here. First, the word commandment. Jesus uses the same word He had previously used in reference to the ten commandments. But, He also used this word in reference to instruction from His heavenly Father, "I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from my Father." (John 10:18)

Second is the word new. Jesus had already stated in Mark 12:30-31 that the most important commandment was this, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."' So, what is new about Jesus commanding 'love one another?'

What's new is the type of love Jesus commands: we are to love as Jesus loved us. Jesus' love is aboundingly new. His love is eternally constant and divinely pure. It is marked by His loving service and amazing self-sacrifice. As Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, "There is no light in the planet but that which cometh from the sun; there is no light in the moon but that which is borrowed, and there is no true love in the heart but that which cometh from God." This is why Jesus adds, "all men (mankind) will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Pray for Jesus' love to not only overwhelm you today, but for it to be brilliantly reflected before all whom you meet today. Pray that the Lord will flood His love upon Grace Redeemer that when people of Crestview are asked to describe her, that they may say, "That church loves!"