"A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" ~ John 13:34
Just after Judas ran from the room the night before they killed Jesus, the Lord began to talk about his
new commandment of love. I'm [Eugenia Price, the author] glad that John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," tells us about this. John must have been very sensitive to the love of God because he was the one who wrote so simply and clearly, as an old man, that "God is love."
How like the Lord Jesus to begin talking about love almost the minute Judas ran from the room! If He could speak of love at the very moment of His betrayal by one of His own disciples, do you think for an instant that He would refuse to "shed abroad in our hearts" this same kind of forgiving love ---
if we make room for it? Far from refusing, He commands that we love with the kind of love only possible to God.
Often it is harder to love a Christian brother or sister who "rubs us the wrong way" than it is an outsider of whom we don't expect so much. Perhaps for this reason He spoke particularly of love that last night when His own human creations were about to murder Him because one of His own had betrayed Him. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34).
He said we were to have for each other the kind of love He has for us. He told them of His love that night but He also washed their feet and dried them with His own hands. "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." Then He went out and died to make it possible for us to do it.
"If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet."
How like the Lord Jesus to begin talking about love almost the minute Judas ran from the room! If He could speak of love at the very moment of His betrayal by one of His own disciples, do you think for an instant that He would refuse to "shed abroad in our hearts" this same kind of forgiving love --- if we make room for it? Far from refusing, He commands that we love with the kind of love only possible to God.
Often it is harder to love a Christian brother or sister who "rubs us the wrong way" than it is an outsider of whom we don't expect so much. Perhaps for this reason He spoke particularly of love that last night when His own human creations were about to murder Him because one of His own had betrayed Him. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34).
He said we were to have for each other the kind of love He has for us. He told them of His love that night but He also washed their feet and dried them with His own hands. "I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you." Then He went out and died to make it possible for us to do it.
"If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another's feet."
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