Learning to Love One Another

John 15:17, "These things I command you, that you love one another."

Throughout the fifteenth chapter of John, Jesus takes great care in preparing His disciples for life without Him. We are now at a place where He is about to change subject matter, but before He does, Jesus echoes a vital theme one more time. He wants so much for the ones who perhaps had followed Him into the vineyard to remember this one thing. It had become a familiar phrase, one that their Rabbi deemed important enough to restate. "Love each other."

The word "love" in this case indicates a direction of the will; in other words, we can choose to love or not to love. If our choice is not to love, then we have disobeyed a direct command of the Lord.

It's interesting that God gives us everything that we need and not necessarily everything that we want. And yet, He is Love and therefore loves genuinely and perfectly. When we follow God's example of loving others, we are learning how to love the way He instructs.

1 John 3:17, "But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?"

1 John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born or God and knows God."

John 13:34-35, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Jesus had forewarned His disciples that He was going to send a Helper to them. The Helper is the Holy Spirit, Who "convicts the world of sin, and of righteousness" (John 16:8). Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to comfort, counsel, and teach all things to the ones He was leaving behind. He will open our eyes to the needs of those around us and guide us to find ways to give. As we seek to abide in Christ every day, may others see His character by our actions.