Thoughts for the Day

Love one another as I have loved you.                       John 13:34

I did say we would spend a few days looking at what Jesus said about how we should respond to God’s love for us, starting with the (seemingly) easy response and getting harder. We considered loving our neighbours, and then loving our enemies.  What can be harder than that?  The answer (I’m suggesting) is loving our friends … or to be more correct loving each other as Jesus loved his disciples, whom he very specifically called his friends.   Three aspects come to my mind when I consider this:

• One of the disciples betrayed Jesus and all the rest deserted him in his hour of greatest need.  I haven’t known the pain of betrayal and desertion, but I have seen it in others and can attest that to continue to love such friends (and Jesus called Judas Iscariot ‘friend’ even during his act of betrayal) calls for a big heart and great strength of will.
• The depth of Jesus’ love was to die for his friends, and he himself said “greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his friend”.  I may not be asked to die for my friends, but I see in this a challenge to hold nothing back.
• Jesus continues his instruction to love one another with the comment that “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.”  It is lovely when visitors to a church are struck by a general atmosphere of love and care, and I’m sure that is part of this.   But how many people could say that everyone knows they follow Jesus on the evidence of their love for their Christian brothers and sisters?

So, perhaps loving one another as Jesus loved us is more of a challenge than we might first have thought!