The Word Says:
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Verse Thoughts:
The love of Christ is a supernatural love, a divine love, a love that streams to us from the heart of God, for God is Love. The Lord Jesus was soon to demonstrate how deep that love was for all who receive Him as their redeeming sin sacrifice, for greater love has no one than this, that the Man Christ Jesus, God incarnate, would lay down His life for His friends.
And so He gave us a new commandment, a command that sums up the perfect Law of God in one simple act: “Love one another as I have loved You,” for in so doing, we perfectly fulfil the requirements of God’s law and the will of God’s heart for all His children, for what is impossible for man is possible with God. When we live our life in spirit and truth, and in submission to the Holy Spirit, the life of Christ lives in us and the love of Christ streams from us, and God is glorified by this.
And there is a legitimate reason that we are called upon to live godly in Christ Jesus, to walk in spirit and truth, to submit to the teaching and training of the Holy Spirit, to learn obedience through suffering: “To love one another as Christ loved us, for by this all people will know that you are my disciples.“ A disciple is one that LEARNS of Christ. No surprise that early in His ministry Christ said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me,” so that at the end of His life He could give a new commandment: That we love others as He loved us.
When, in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians put to death the lust of the flesh, the things of the world, and the pride of life, and choose to walk in newness of life, we walk in love. Only as we allow Christ to live in us, will His love stream through us so that by THIS will other people know that we are learning of Christ, that we are His disciples.