Tuesday’s Blog – Love one Another; a command

Tuesday’s Blog – Love one Another; a command

Proverbs 18: 24 – A man (person) who has friends must show ( or may come to ruin) him or herself be friendly, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Bible Challenges and Comments

We travel over words in the Holy Bible like we travel over the highways to and from work; this speed also affects our relationships with friends and relatives. We desire friendship and fellowship and sometimes we even demand it in ways that may come to ruin. Reaching out to the people in your life can be exhausting and discouraging and I believe we have all been on one or both of those paths from time to time.

Try to be friendly with someone and just note this, if you are a new neighbor on the block, a new student in school or a new person in church; people seem to fall all over you. Not to be a friend but to find out about you and to see if you fit somewhere in their future moments of time. People are quick at this, if you fail at being in their next moment they will find a way to escape and “poof” they are gone.

It is not a matter of meeting your need of friendship, that would be reaching out and these days we do not have “long arms” if you cannot tell; this is to me is a serious problem in our country, community and church. To relate to all three this morning would be time consuming, so I will focus the remainder of this devotional blog on the “church”.

I am not sure what you would call this statement. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” Proverbs 17:17 especially when you connect it to brothers and sisters in Christ. We could call it an “oxymoron” but that would be foolish, we could say that it is two statements that contradict each other, but separate it from the definition of oxymoron. This then for me is the closer “human reasoning” meaning. Thus the statement is like putting on two socks that do not match. Were it not for my friend and wife I would never wear matching socks.

Friendship and Fellowship in the Living Word of God is joined together by one word, and that word is “Love” note with me; John 15:9-17 – "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

It is time for the saints of God to back off on the accelerator of living and begin to enjoy the love of God once again. God the Father loves His Son, Jesus. Jesus brought that love to earth and if you are a believer in Jesus, He showed His love relationship with His Father to you and you accepted it and you like me would say that you abide in His commandment of Love (1 John 3:11) and I ask you?

What is the burden of relationship to one another? It can only be love; love that we refuse to give to another because of one or two related reasons, (1) we are not obeying the command to “LOVE” or (2) we do not understand the sacrificial love of God who laid down His Life for His friends. Here is a thought… you cannot choose your friends (true friends) but like Jesus they must choose you and when they do, you must (or come to ruin) show yourself friendly.

Hard to understand, yet here then is how it works; Jesus simply says “These things I command you, that you love one another.” Friendships develop out of love.

Hebrews 9:28 - so Christ was offered to bear the sins of many, and unto them that look for Him shall He appear a second time without sin unto salvation.  Jesse <><