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Love One Another
Rene:
John 15:12 - "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."
I have been thinking a lot about this commandment lately. I found at least 12 scriptures (see below) that have this commandment. Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John all said it. This leads me to two conclusions, (1) this commandment is VERY IMPORTANT; and (2) this commandment must be VERY HARD for us to keep! :D
Here are 12 places this commandment is mentioned:
John 13:34 1Thes 4:9 1John 4:7
John 15:12 1Peter 1:22 1John 4:11
John 15:17 1John 3:11 1John 4:12
Rom 13:8 1John 3:23 2John 1:5
What do you all think? Is it hard to love one another? Keep in mind, I am not talking about some "fake" lovey-dovey, pretentious manifestation of love.
René
River:
Yes, very hard and you become hated as well because of it.
Kat:
Hi Rene,
Good point (love) that we need to focus on. This scripture came to mind.
Luke 6:32 "If you love only the people who love you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners love those who love them!
v. 33 And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners do that!
v. 34 And if you lend only to those from whom you hope to get it back, why should you receive a blessing? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount!
v. 35 No! Love your enemies and do good to them; lend and expect nothing back. You will then have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High God. For he is good to the ungrateful and the wicked.
I can understand this, it's easy to love people that you have a good relationship with. But those people that you may have some kind of conflict with or sometimes people are just not easily approachable, now that's a different story. You know it's easy to love someone who you have a reciprocating relationship of give and take with.
So what about all those people that we might find a good reason to love? I think with the Spirit indwelling we should be compelled to seek to deal in a good and positive manner with those we would naturally want to avoid. If we are truly in training to judge the world then we should want to learn how to 'love' everyone to matter how difficult they are. That is something I want to work towards, moving outside of my comfort zone and reaching out to people that I would not normally want to.
mercy, peace and love
Kat
mharrell08:
One other point, all love isn't the same love. There are different kinds of love...love for your family, love for your friends, love for your co-workers, etc. We're not going to love all of these people in the same manner. I think the main thing is to not wish or want evil upon any of them...especially more so the ones you love less than others.
Kat:
Good point Marques. Here is a email that I found that makes this point as well.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php?topic=3400.0 --------------
We are to "love/agapeo" our enemies, meaning that we are to desire for them to come into a knowledge of the truth and to bitterly REPENT of their INDIGNITY to other humans. We are not to "love/phileo" them with emotional love, fondness, hugs and kisses!
God be with you,
Ray
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