LOVE ONE ANOTHER This is My Commandment, That You Love One Another - John 15:12 by Andrew Murray God is love. His whole nature and perfection is love, living not for Himself, but to dispense life and blessing. In His love He created the Son, that He might give all to Him. In His love He brought forth creatures that He might make them partakers of His blessedness. Christ is the Son of Gods love, the bearer, the revealer, the communicator of that love. His life and death were all love. Love is His life, and the life He gives. He only lives to love, to live out His life of love in us, to give Himself in all who will receive Him. The very first thought of the true Vine is love-living only to impart His life to the branches. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of love. He cannot impart Christs life without imparting His love. Salvation is nothing but love conquering and entering into us; we have just as much of salvation as we have of love. Full salvation is perfect love. No wonder that Christ said: A new commandment I give unto you; This is my commandment-the one all-inclusive commandment-that you love one another. The branch is not only one with the vine, but with all its other branches; they drink one spirit, they form one body, they bear one fruit. Nothing can be more unnatural than that Christians should not love one another, even as Christ loved them. The life they received from their heavenly Vine is nothing but love. This is the one thing He asks above all others. Hereby shall all men know that you are my disciples...love one another. As the special sort of vine is known by the fruit it bears, the nature of the heavenly Vine is to be judged by the love His disciples have to one another. See that you obey this commandment. Let your obey and abide be seen in this. Love your brethren as the way to abide in the love of your Lord. Let your vow of obedience begin here. Love one another. Let your intercourse with the Christians in your own family be holy, tender, Christlike love. Let your thoughts of the Christians round you be, before everything, in the spirit of Christs love. Let your life and conduct be the sacrifice of love-give yourself up to think of their sins or their needs, to intercede for them, to help and to serve them. Be in your church or circle the embodiment of Christs love. The life Christ lives in you is love; let the life in which you live it out be all love. But, man, you write as if all this was so natural and simple and easy. Is it at all possible thus to live and thus to love? My answer is: Christ commands it: you must obey. Christ means it: you must obey, or you cannot abide in His love. But I have tried and failed. I see no prospect of living like Christ. Ah! that is because you have failed to take in the first word of the parable-I am the true Vine: I give all you need as a branch, I give all I myself have. I pray you, let the sense of past failure and present feebleness drive you to the Vine. He is all love. He loves to give. He gives love. He will teach you to love, even as He loved. Love one another. Dear Lord Jesus, You are all love; the life You gave us is love; The new commandment, and The badge of discipleship is, Love one another. I accept the charge: with the love with which You love me, and I love You, I will love my brethren.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Mar 2014 10:52:20 +0000
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