John 13:34-35 English Standard Version

³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus is speaking to the twelve. What did love look like to those twelve men? How did Jesus show them love? If they were to love one another in the same way, then their perception of His love is important in how they loved one another.

Two things are related in this commandment. One is understanding His love on a personal level. The second is a willingness to obey the command. If these passages are to hold any sway over us, then we might consider our understanding of His love for us and our willingness to obey.

How does Jesus Christ show His love to us in our personal relationship with Him?

He died for the forgiveness of our sins. Now imagine standing in a crowd of tens of millions of people, far back from the foot of the cross. Does that make us feel personally connected to His death? Do we mourn His death as His mother does? We cannot even see her at the foot of the cross. We didn’t know Him at that point in time. Can we say that we understand that act on a personal level?

All that He did in His ministry was witnessed by those twelve men. They were there. Jesus rose the dead, heal the blind, cure the lepers, in their presence but did they feel loved by Him just because they were present in that moment?

Reading His Word tells us of His love for the weak, the troubled, the helpless, and the hopeless. Does reading His Word make us feel loved personally?

We have to let Him into our hearts before we can know His love. Everything else is just a history lesson.

Galatians 4:19 English Standard Version (ESV) my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!

John 1:15-17 English Standard Version

¹⁵ (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) ¹⁶ For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Do we find ourselves struggling over these two verses together? We perceive that we have not come to the fullness of Christ in us but yet believe we have received His fullness. Let us reason with one another.

We have been born again and have become a new creation. Christ in us is Christ in all His fullness when we are reborn just as a baby is fully human at birth. That baby has done nothing to demonstrate the maturity that only time can bring about. It is much the same way with us now that we have entered into the Kingdom of God.

This relationship is likened to a betrothal. The bride has a past, a history, a mind of her own. Until the wedding she gets to know the love of the groom and in discovering how much He loves her, her attitudes about being an individual with a mind of her own melt away in favor of loving her betrothed.

The more time she spends with Him the more she changes but she will not be one with Him until the wedding.

Paul’s expression in Galatians 4:19 is a reflection of his calling to build Christ’s church, to preach the gospel and oversee many members of His church, His bride. We are members of a large wedding party. Like Paul we should recognize our responsibility to Jesus to love those whom He loves and called to be members with us.

Loving Jesus requires us to love those He loves.