"This I command you, that you love one another."
Two commandments, both the same, with identical fervor, only a few verses apart. Jesus' call for us to love one another "bookends" this passage in John chapter 15.
Hallmark and florists and the like celebrate love, especially on February 14th! But the love that Jesus declares and demonstrates is a love to the death, a sacrificial love, wrapped in obedience.
His words promise peace and joy...
"Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." John 14:27
"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full." John 15:11
And what are "these things He has spoken"???
"If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love..." John 15:10
Now look at the passage Tom taught this past Sunday with the words that stress love and obedience highlighted:
John 15:12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends, if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another."
As the old song goes, "They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love, and they'll know we are Christians by our love."
And God will know we love Him if we willingly and thankfully act in obedience!
"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome." 1 John 5:3
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