Dave's Diary

As Christians we are disciples of Jesus, and few passages of Scripture sum up Jesus’ desire for His disciples’ lives better than today’s reading from John 13:1-17, and 34-35. Having first demonstrated what love in action looks like by washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus makes His call on our lives perfectly clear in v.34-35

³⁴ ‘A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’

As disciples, we are called to connect deeply to fellow members of our Family in Christ, through deliberately cultivating genuine, sincere, loving relationships of mutual support, care and fellowship. We are called to a lifestyle of loving others in practical ways. And we are called to do so in such self-sacrificial, self-giving ways that the world cannot help but notice that we love one another, and that we do so because of or mutual love for Jesus.

We might have thought the new commandment would be that we love Jesus in an outstanding way. Instead, Jesus directs us to love one another. It’s as though he loves us so much, that when we love one another we are loving Him. Charles Spurgeon pointed out that the command to love wasn’t new; but the extent of love which Jesus had just displayed in the foot-washing was new, as would be the display of the cross. Love was newly defined from His example. “We are to love our neighbour as ourselves, but we are to love our fellow-Christians as, Christ loved us, and that is far more than we love ourselves.” Let this be our point of reflection throughout the day. And may our reflection move us to loving action.

Lord Jesus, help me to love You and to bear witness to the perfections of Your love, by loving Your children, my siblings-in-faith with unconditional, steadfast love in ation. Amen.