"Do We Really Love Each Other?"-John 13:31-38

Have you ever wondered what Jesus meant when He told the disciples, "They will know that you are my disciples by your love for one another...?" I love this phrase by Jesus because this was right about the time that Jesus was predicting His betrayal by Judas to John (the beloved Disciples) and predicting His denial by Peter three times and Jesus' life was seriously fixin (yeah, that's a Texas term...), to get rough, I mean really rough, but He wanted to leave and send them with the ultimate example of what He wanted to leave behind, His love for them so that they would love one another.

Have you ever thought about how hard that must've been for the Disciples to hear? That the man they had grown so close to, shared fellowship with, loved one and were loved by, eaten many meals with, stood up for (Peter...and the sword...let's just say the man who had his ear cut off, probably wasn't the biggest fan of Peter but was a fan of Jesus...wouldn't you be if He put your ear back on?). Anyway, these guys had given up their jobs, their families, their livelihoods, their friends and everything else that was precious and valuable to them to follow this Jesus and now He was leaving them...can you feel the pain they were feeling? OUCH!

But, the coolest part of it all is that Jesus gave them an example, He didn't leave them with nothing, He actually had been showing them since the time He came into the flesh in John 1:14, to the time of His betrayal and even to the time on the cross how to love genuinely. How awesome it was that Jesus had not only talked about it but showed it and challenged them to show it to everyone else...so the question is this, DO WE REALLY LOVE EACH OTHER? He told us the world around us would know Him through our love for one another...Grace and peace.

"He is ALWAYS Faithful"-2 Timothy 2:11-13

Have you ever wondered why God continues to love us even when we don't deserve it? I wrote and spoke on this a bit in yesterday's blog, but the question still remains to me, why does God constantly come through for me and love me and remain faithful to me, even when I am unfaithful to Him? Why is it that He is always there to hold us up even when we've committed the same sin for the Umpteenth (is that a word?) time? Time and time again, God has shown me His faithfulness and you know what I've done in return? Remained unfaithful, you know I think what we are guilty of doing sometimes is thinking nothing of sin, I mean we commit sin everyday and we throw it off as the cliche, "well we all sin everyday." My problem with that lies in the fact that I want to be faithful to God and sometimes I just have the hardest time being faithful, remaining sinless even for an hour, or praising my God when I overcome a temptation.

Isn't it great to know that God is faithful to us even when we SO don't deserve for Him to be? It blows my mind each day to know how much God loves me and how even when I turn my back on Him and remain in sin, or even when I pay Him no attention that He remains there waiting for me to come back to Him. Even when He's the last thought in my mind, I'm the first in His...crazy huh? It would be so easy for Him to just say "forget it...I'm not gonna continue to love Him when he continues to screw up all the time" but He never says that and He always promises that He will remain with us, it's a crazy thought! Just an encouragement to you...God will remain faithful to you even when you're not faithful to Him and I'll say it again...when He's the last thought on your mind, you're the first on His-Grace and Peace.

"Here is a trustworthy saying: If we died with Him, we will also live with Him; If we endure, we will also reign with Him. If we disown Him, He will also disown us; IF WE ARE FAITHLESS, HE WILL REMAIN FAITHFUL, FOR HE CANNOT DISOWN HIMSELF."-2 Timothy 2:11-13

"We Needed to Be Loved"

1 John 4:7-5:3




There are some facts that need to be pointed out in this Passage...
1. The word "love" appears in this book of I John 46 times, but 32 of those are in this passage alone.
2. It can be compared to that of I Corinthians 13 (Love Chapter)
3. There are 3 different kinds of "LOVE" in Scripture and here they are:
a. AGAPE...defined as, "an unconditional commitment to the well being of another person or “I’m committed to your good no matter what, no matter how you treat me, I’m committed to your good."
b. Philia..."Friendship love" can be viewed as 'Give and Take'
c. Eros..."Romantic love"...defined as that infatuation we have with someone we "love", it's sort of a romantic love (what I can take for myself)

God loved us with an AGAPE love, He loved us with that unconditional commitment to our well being, no matter how we treat him, He is committed to our Good, doesn't that just blow your mind, that He would love us in spite of ourselves?

Think about that for a second, no matter what we do, He is committed to our good, sometimes we convince ourselves that other people need to deserve our love, but we are just a channel of His love to be given unconditionally to others.

Question then is: "What LOVE are you loving with today?"

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