LOVE ONE ANOTHER
This is My Commandment, That Ye Love One Another--John 15:12
God is love. His whole nature and perfection is
love, living not for Himself, but to dispense life and blessing. In His love He
begat the Son, that He might give all to Him. In His love He brought forth
creatures that He might make them partakers of His blessedness.
Christ is the Son of God's love, the bearer, the
revealer, the communicator of that love. His life and death were all love. Love
is His life, and the life He gives. He only lives to love, to live out His life
of love in us, to give Himself in all who will receive Him. The very first
thought of the true Vine is love--living only to impart His life to the
branches.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love. He cannot
impart Christ's life without imparting His love. Salvation is nothing but love
conquering and entering into us; we have just as much of salvation as we have
of love. Full salvation is perfect love.
No wonder that Christ said: "A new commandment I
give unto you"; "This is my commandment"--the one all-inclusive
commandment--"that ye love one another." The branch is not only one with the
vine, but with all its other branches; they drink one spirit, they form one
body, they bear one fruit. Nothing can be more unnatural than that Christians
should not love one another, even as Christ loved them. The life they received
from their heavenly Vine is nothing but love. This is the one thing He asks
above all others. "Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples...love
one another." As the special sort of vine is known by the fruit it bears, the
nature of the heavenly Vine is to be judged of by the love His disciples have
to one another.
See that you obey this commandment. Let your
"obey and abide" be seen in this. Love your brethren as the way to abide in the
love of your Lord. Let your vow of obedience begin here. Love one another. Let
your intercourse with the Christians in your own family be holy, tender,
Christlike love. Let your thoughts of the Christians round you be, before
everything, in the spirit of Christ's love. Let your life and conduct be the
sacrifice of love--give your self up to think of their sins or their needs, to
intercede for them, to help and to serve them. Be in your church or circle the
embodiment of Christ's love. The life Christ lives in you is love; let the life
in which you live it out be all love.
But, man, you write as if all this was so natural
and simple and easy. Is it at all possible thus to live and thus to love? My
answer is: Christ commands it: you must obey. Christ means it: you must obey,
or you cannot abide in His love.
But I have tried and failed. I see no prospect of
living like Christ. Ah! that is because you have failed to take in the first
word of the parable--"I am the true Vine: I give all you need as a branch, I
give all I myself have." I pray you, let the sense of past failure and present
feebleness drive you to the Vine. He is all love. He loves to give. He gives
love. He will teach you to love, even as He loved.
Love one another. Dear Lord Jesus, Thou
art all love; the life Thou gavest us is love; Thy new commandment, and Thy
badge of discipleship is, "Love one another." I accept the charge: with the
love with which Thou lovest me, and I love Thee, I will love my brethren.