John 13:34 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.

Is this really a new commandment?

Matthew 22:36-40 English Standard Version

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

That was the great commandment under the law but we live by grace. How does that differ?

Jesus demonstrated love. He showed us what agapē love looks like. We can see that love in Matthew 22:38 is the word agapaō. While agapē means love feast, agapaō means to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly. The comparative between the two is not in how Jesus loved us perfectly, it is in how we love ourselves.

Self love can never be as perfect and God’s love, it has an element of sinful history which God does not possess. No matter how much we feel forgiven, no matter how much we are grateful for His sacrifice for us, the memories of our past lives remain.

The law holds on to judgment, grace does not. If we deem ourselves unworthy of God’s love we will discover it is much harder to demonstrate God’s love to others. Justification is a declarative judgment from God’s Holy Court that changes His view of us. How we view ourselves is another matter.

Perhaps agapaō love takes us back to the point where Jesus said to us that how we treat our fellow man is how we treat him, a demonstration of grace, not an act of obedience. When you fix a meal and share it with a neighbor, do you preface the act with “My God commanded me to do this.”? No, the act itself is the demonstration of grace.

Our motivation for acts cannot be obedience, it has to be the abiding love we have for the one who saved us, changed us, and continues to guide us.

For the love of God is not declarative, it is at the heart of who we are as children of the Father.

Revelation 3:8 I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

These are the words to the church in Philadelphia, and no, not the one in Pennsylvania. These words from Revelations to the churches are meant for all of us about present day attitudes and attributes. What has been set in motion cannot be changed, His Word will accomplish His will.

• Isaiah 46:10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’
• Isaiah 55:11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

It amazes me that some can conceive and believe in multiverses and yet cannot accept the eternal realm of God. That realm is a finished work, all that has not yet been done is finished in God’s eternal realm. It cannot be changed.

• Genesis 2:1
  The Seventh Day, God Rests
  Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
• Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done.
• Genesis 2:3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

Since this is true, and it matters not if you take my word for it, God said so, why do we even try?

Which sounds better to you who believe?

Matthew 25:21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’

Psalm 95:11 Therefore I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.”

I am comforted in His words, “You have been faithful over a little.” He did not say much or everything, but the little I did do was enough to enter into His rest.

I preach the gospel to many and if only a few come to believe, that is better than none.