Tag: Loving Jesus

Morning Musing: Honoring A Great Lady

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“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35 – CSB – Read the chapter)

Followers of Jesus have used all kinds of means to identify themselves over the centuries. Symbols, titles, national identities, and so on and so forth. We do this because we want to know who’s saved and who’s not. Now, too often we’ve gotten off track from Jesus’ teachings and used this knowledge for a variety of nefarious purposes, but we’ve also been more noble in our aims. For all the ways we identify ourselves, though, Jesus gave us a marker, a way to tell who are His followers and who aren’t. It’s very simple, He said, just love like He does. I got to participate in bidding a final-for-now farewell to a great lady yesterday. Let me tell you about Peggy and being someone who loves one another.

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Morning Musing: John 15:9-10

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“As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

We hate hypocrisy and people who take up contradictory positions. And this is not without good reason. Seeing someone claim one thing to be true – and in such a way that they are actively seeking to force others to live up to these standards – and then to see them live in such a way as to betray a belief that it isn’t really true is to witness a lie. It is to see someone creating a fantasy world into which they are trying to force others, but in which they won’t live themselves. It’s disgusting. Because this so bothers us, critics of the Scriptures are always on the lookout for hypocrisy and contradictions in the them. As people who would uphold the integrity of the Scriptures, we need to be ready to explain why places like this aren’t examples of it.

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Digging in Deeper: 1 John 4:20

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“If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter) 

So, the first time we looked at this verse, we established the rather uncomfortable truth that we either love or hate the people around us. If we are not committed to intentionally moving them in the direction of Jesus, we hate them. It may not be an intense, emotional, passionate hatred the way we might normally think of when we hear the word, but throughout the Scriptures the word “hatred” often means to merely reject. Even without the emotion, if we reject the people whom God has accepted, we have a problem. What John says next makes all of this even more uncomfortable. 

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