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. – John 13:34
The direction to love one another is not new. God gave it to the children of Israel through Moses in Leviticus 19:17-18.
Yet, on the night He knew He was about to be betrayed, Jesus told His disciples He was giving them a new commandment—not just that they love one another, but how they were to do it— “just as I have loved you.”
He had been their model while He was with them, which was the pattern He expected them to follow.
In sending them the Holy Spirit, they were imbued with His power by which to love one another.
Tertullian, one of the early church fathers who lived in the Roman province of Carthage during the third century, said the kind of love Christians showed to one another baffled non-believers. He wrote, “It is mainly the deeds of love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. ‘See’ they say, ‘how they love one another… How they are ready even to die for one another!’” He said the early church was of “one mind and one soul.”
Is this true of you and your fellow believers today?
The secular world increasingly criticizes those who claim faith in Christ as extremists, supremacists, intolerant, divisive, and hypocritical, and the lack of love and unity among believers reinforces these claims.
Hymn lyricist Peter Scholtes wrote, “We are one in the Spirit, one in the Lord… And we pray that our unity will one day be restored. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.”
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