SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/4/2016 11:12 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 The Preeminent Example of Christ’s Love
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 13:34-35
Message of the verses: “34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this
all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one
another."”
We ended
our last SD by looking at a quote from D. A. Carson who wrote about how this
commandment that Christ gives here is an example of Christ’s selfless, sacrificial
love that sets the supreme standard for believers to follow. In today’s SD will look at some different
verses from the pen of Paul and begin with Ephesians 5:2 “Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you
and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant
aroma.” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians
13:4-7 the kind of love this is “4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered, 6 does
not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Francis
Schaeffer gives two practical ways in which a Christian can manifest this kind
of love for each other, and they are first of all they can do this by being
willing to apologize and also to seek forgiveness from those in which they have
wronged. In the body of Christ we must
do these things if we want to fulfill the new commandment that Christ has given
to us as not doing them will most often cause a great division among brothers
in Christ. Jesus spoke about this in
Matthew 5:23-24 “23 "Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the
altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave
your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your
brother, and then come and present your offering.”
We can also
demonstrate love by granting forgiveness to those who have sinned against us
and here is why we should do this, and this is something that we probably all
know, but because we are human we tend to forget it when we need to forgive someone
who sins against us. When we become a
believer in Jesus Christ that is when we are saved from our sins we are
forgiven everything, past, present and future sins that we commit and all sin
is committed against God, so since we are forgiven of all sins we should also
forgive those who sin against us. Jesus
spoke a parable about this when He told the story of the man who was forgiven
by someone over a dept that he could never repay and then that man went out and
tried to collect from a man who only owed him a little bit.
Now here is
perhaps a harder situation that believers have to extend love to others and
that is it is not just for those who are in the Church, but also unbelievers,
and this is very difficult to do, and we need help and guidance from the Holy
Spirit and the Word of God to do this. 1
Thessalonians 3:12 says “and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in
love for one another, and
for all people, just as we also do for you.”
MacArthur
writes “The Lord’s statement, ‘By this all men will know that you are My
disciples’ reveals the effect of believers’ having ‘love for one another:’ the
world will know that we belong to Him.
The church may be orthodox in its doctrine and vigorous in its
proclamation of the truth, but that will not persuade unbelievers unless
believers love each other. In fact,
Jesus gave the world the right to judge whether or not someone is a Christian
based on whether or not that person sincerely loves other Christians.
We end with
a quote from Francis Schaeffer who wrote “The church is to be a loving church
in a dying culture…In the midst of the world, in the midst of our present dying
culture, Jesus is giving a right to the world.
Upon His authority He gives the world the right to judge whether you and
I are born-again Christians on the basis of our observable love toward all
Christians.
“That’s
pretty frightening. Jesus turns to the
world and says, ‘I’ve something to say to you.
On the basis of my authority, I give you a right: you may judge whether
or not an individual is a Christian on the basis of the love he shows to all
Christians.’ In other words, if people
come up to us and cast into our teeth the judgment that we are not Christians
because we have not shown love toward other Christians, we must understand that
they are only exercising a prerogative which Jesus gave them.”
By showing
love to other believers shows whether or not a person is a genuine believer.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Yes” (John 4:43-45).
Today’s Bible question:
“Who said ‘The Lord watch between me and you, when we are absent from
each other?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/4/2016 11:45 PM
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