Love One Another

This is My Commandment That You Love One Another

/ pastorpete51 / Leave a comment

 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. .John 15:12 NKJV

Now, when Jesus told His disciples, “This is my commandment”, He certainly didn’t mean, that there were no other principles, commands or expectations within His teachings about the Kingdom of God. But what it does mean, is that if we aren’t loving one another, then none of the other stuff matters. As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, “Even if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” With a single sentence, Jesus levels the playing field among Christians. Rich or poor, male or female, young or old, brilliant or just folks with plain intelligence, we are all equally His children. Even if we are alone, we still are each given an opportunity to love someone today, if only through our prayers. Even though this chorus was not in their songbook, it so resonated with the residents at Life Care Center, that many were tapping their feet, singing along and smiling broadly. Are you struggling to love someone right now? Don’t worry. God isn’t expecting us to do all the heavy lifting. All He asks of us is to open our hearts and allow His love to pour through us to others. The world may never run out of people who are tough to love, but God will also never run out of love, because the Bible tells us, “God is love” (John 4:8).

Have a blessed weekend everyone, Happy Father's Day and remember that even the Beatles said, 
"We all need somebody to love!"

Standing on the Promises

/ pastorpete51 / 5 Comments

Yesterday was the National Day of Prayer but we almost missed it! How Glad I was to notice it on the television and spend the last 35 minutes of our evening praying for our nation. Just as in any family we often have our differences. God offers us the opportunity to pray together and sing together as one church, to remind us that for those of us who follow Him, through Christ we are all one. Unity in Jesus is one of the great promises of the Bible, but one that we have to stand on during the storms and we certainly are in the midst of a storm today! We are in a storm overseas with the war in Ukraine. We are in the storm at home fighting with each other over the best way to combat a pandemic that never seems to end. We are in a political and media storm as the battle for the innocent lives of the unborn hangs in the balance. We must pray…but more than that…we must stand together or as Benjamin Franklin noted in 1776, “We must indeed all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” But what we stand together on is not political cleverness, social acceptance or military power. What holds us together as the family of God is Standing on His promises and loving one another as He commanded.

So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” John 13:34-35 NLT

God’s Grocery List

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15:11-12

“Brother do you love me?” asked one of my jokester friends at Bible college one day. I was kind of puzzled where Jose was going with this so I decided to play along. “Okay Jose. I love you. What do you need?’ I answered. “Then obey my commandments!” he shouted with a big grin. Now that is a special memory and kind of a funny story that I still carry after fifty years, but it got me to thinking about Jesus and His commandment. We might think about it this way – the Pharisees had a list of six hundred plus commandments, Moses gave us ten, but Jesus narrowed the list down to one. Think of it like me going into the grocery store. In my hand is a list of four things which my wife has carefully written down. Nancy being a detail person usually includes things like the brand, and size she needs and even the aisle where I can find her items. Imagine her response if I returned home with two of the four things missing! Yet this happens every day with us. Jesus only left us one commandment – love one another as I have loved you.” Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s why everybody loves Jesus! Jewish people love him as a great teacher, Muslims love Him as a general in God’s army, Hindus love His peaceful resistance to unjust authority and even a good number of professed atheists think He was a nice guy. The reason these folks generally never show up for church has a lot less to do with Jesus than with how we flop at obeying His commandment.

So how can we do better? First, we could start remembering that His great commandment is not a nice suggestion. Swindlers and sick folks, strangers and thieves all felt right at home with Jesus. They each came to Him, not because He was one of them; but because they knew that He cared about them and was ready to help at any hour of the day or night. The problem is they often don’t feel that way with us. So then, who can I love today like Jesus loved me? I am convinced that God has a detailed grocery list that includes their brand, size and location and we can be assured that it will be the joy of His heart to show us exactly how if we are ready to obey!