Day 31

“This new command to love is not just to love one another as we love ourselves but to love each other better and more than we love ourselves.”  

Yesterday, we took a look at the “Top Ten One Another’s”

Today, we’re zeroing in on the “Kingpin One Another”:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35).

In bowling, the kingpin is the center pin nearest the bowler. In business and in relationships, the kingpin is the person of chief importance in an undertaking. This new command of Jesus is the foundational kingpin for us being an authentic community of grace.

“A New Command…” In both the teachings of the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus, the command is clear, “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself” Jesus says here, however, that he is bringing a new command. This command is that we are to love one another as Jesus has loved us. R.V.G. Tasker says to love others like this is, “to love others not because we like them, or are bound to them by family, social or national ties, nor because they happen geographically or in some other way to be our neighbors, but solely because they are fellow-sinners redeemed by Christ.” The new commandment is rooted in the very nature of God, himself. German theologian, Karl Barth, after writing thousands and thousands of pages of systematic theology and church dogmatic, simply and profoundly defined God as “the One who loves. “This new command to love is not just to love one another as we love ourselves, but to love each other better and more than we love ourselves. This new command to love entails not just the meeting of my neighbor’s need but the sacrificial nature of our love “for one another. In John 15:13, Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends.” This new command to love entails a radical servanthood. In the immediate context of John 13:34-35 is the beautiful and powerful example of Jesus, the loving servant, washing his disciples’ feet.

“As I have loved you. . .” Jesus sacrificed and served; he literally gave his all because of his great love for us. The disciples knew him as teacher and Rabbi, master and healer. They eventually came to know him as Messiah, but they also knew him as Friend. Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15.15). Jesus’ connection with his disciples both long ago and today is not one of mere position but one of profound relation. Throughout his teaching, Jesus used an ongoing language of intimacy when talking of those who followed him. One of the most vivid illustrations of such intimacy is found in John 10:14-15, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – -just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – – and I lay down my life for the sheep.” We belong to him; we are his sheep. We know him and he knows us even as he and the Father know each other. We have absolute value to him as he gives his life, his all for us. Before this “kingpin one another” can “fall” in our lives and become real through our lives, we must first deeply and totally receive the intimate, unconditional and formative love of God.  “All men will know…” This part of this new command has always shaken me.

The world will know that we are Christ’s disciples, the world will know of God’s amazing grace and love because we now have the internet that can reach every person on the face of the planet. . . .No!

The world will know because we have built so many beautiful facilities in the name of Christ throughout the centuries ….No!

The world will know because we have these great Christian schools all around the world…. No!

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” When we truly begin to love one another as Christ has loved us, all heaven will break loose, and the authenticity of our community will be a contagious wild fire of grace that penetrates every fabric of our society.

Grace Point: The call to Christ is a call to authentic community!

Grace Truth: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. “John 13:35

Grace Question: Where is God calling you to live out this new command in your life, today?