Verse: John 13: 34-35 GNB
34 And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.
Series: “Things Jesus Said” from the book of John
Devotion
As we get ready to leave, we always try to impart the most important things, right? Even when it is a simple trip to the store, or going away for the weekend. So, think about this, Jesus is about to leave His disciples and die a horrific death that they will witness and one of the last things He says to them is about loving each other. I would guess that this is a pretty important directive for us to pay attention to.
A really good friend of mine gave a great message on this verse a couple of years ago, and it wasn’t what you would have expected, it was about how we need to learn to love ourselves first because if we don’t know how to love ourselves, how can we know how to love others?! Let me say that has stuck with me. It was so true in my life, and I can even take it one step further, we need to let God love us so that we know what true love looks like so that we can know our value and worth and then shower that same value on to others.
Story time! I grew up in the church, dad was a pastor for a time, uncle was a pastor until he passed, grandfather was a missionary and then pastor, so yes, I GREW UP in the church! But I didn’t understand that God actually love me, for me. (we won’t go into all of the why’s and all of that here 😉) Fast forward a lot of years and a lot of poor choices that were made out of a place of not understanding my worth and value in God’s eyes and His overwhelming and abundance of love for me. I was sitting in church feeling awful about myself and some recent choices I had made. During worship, God downloaded how He felt about me in that moment and in every moment, no matter if I was doing really well, or if I was struggling and turned away from Him.
It was a complete turning point for me. I finally got what everyone had been saying forever: God loved me, no matter what I did, no matter how awful I was, and He didn’t stop. Fully understanding that, I was able to become secure in my identity in God and then work to love others better by seeing them more as God sees them. (I won’t claim that I love others in the same capacity as God, because come on, I’m just not that good!)
So, back to Jesus – He’s about to leave His disciples forever – and some of the last words are to love one another as He loves them. He’s about to lay down His life for them and He says – love each other like I love you. What are you laying down in your life to benefit the “one anothers” in your life? Are you holding your tongue when judgement wants to come out, are you taking time when you feel like you have no more to give to help, are you not there yet and working on learning to love yourself?
Prayer
God, I pray that You will show us how to love ourselves and each other well in this season. Please show us ways to grow in sharing Your love with others.
Author: Candice Gifford
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