John 15:12
Food for Thought
An all-creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

John 15:12

New King James Version (NKJV)

12. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 

What is love?

1. Corinthians 13:4-7 New Living Translation (NLT)

4. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

5. or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

6. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

7. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

This seems like a mighty tall order.   Is this impossible? Perhaps it is for us selfish, weak human beings, but not for God.  If we allow our hearts to be healed and surrendered to God and let His presence move into those places we protect knowingly and unknowingly, then His love that is without limit will pour in and through us in a way we could never imagine. This is a love that He knew we could never attain without Him.   

Our Creator created us with the desire for our complete dependence upon Him, not just when we “think” we need Him, but every moment of every day.  There is no other way to flow freely in His presence. 

Notice that Jesus gave this most important command to love one another just before He was crucified and rose to heaven leaving behind the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit was sent because God in His infinite wisdom understood how He created us. We are but sheep that are easily led astray without our Shepherd’s help.  We could not begin to love the way God intended without God’s intervention.  His love is holy; his love is unconditional and just like there is only way to get to heaven, through Jesus, there is only one way to love the way God intended and that is through our baptism in the Holy Spirit.  He commanded us to agape love with the intention to manifest this ability in us and through us.  

I don’t know about you, but I need all the help I can get. 

In a world where we are battered by the winds of opposition and oppression, we need God’s Holy Spirit to help us love in a way that is beyond our capabilities as human beings.  This is the love that makes us, as Christians, different.  This is the love that draws people to God.

So the challenge is to get out of God’s way as He heals and changes your heart. Spread out your spiritual and emotional arms and say to God, “Do in me everything you need to do, so that through me, You can do anything you want to do”. God’s greatest desire is to move His love throughout the world through us, His vessels.

Marni

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The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving, compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do otherwise is not Christian.