Editor's Note: This post was inspired by an excerpt from the book "The Joshua Code" by O. S. Hawkins (for the original excerpt click this link), and my sermon at Christ Church, "The Proof Of Kinship" delivered on September 27, 2020.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love is the secret sauce of the Christian! Love in every circumstance. Love to every person whether friend of someone who chooses to be an enemy. Love if we agree or disagree. Love whether we’re Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green Party, Libertarian, or otherwise. Love if we’re POC or white. Love. Full stop. Love is the key. It’s a commandment.
John spoke of one’s love for another as “a new command”.
1 John 2:8 GNT However, the command I now write you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.
Jesus also called it a new commandment.
Matthew 5:43-45 GNT “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’ But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil.
Jesus also indicated that it was an old commandment when He said that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In fact He said that it was the second greatest commandment and along with the first one, which was to love God, took care of all the other commandments and the prophets.
Mark 12:29-31 GNT Jesus replied, “The most important one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.”
So how can a command be both old and new?
It is old commandment but new in freshness; it is old in principle but new in practice.
The command to “love one another” comes from one of the oldest known laws of God.
Leviticus 19:18 GNT Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the Lord .
But it becomes a refreshingly new command as it is restated and demonstrated in Jesus Christ.
As Christians grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, each new day brings the light of greater knowledge—and at the same time, a new unfolding of the unfathomable depths of His love
Secret Sauce
When people ask me the secret of my delicious, homemade barbecue sauce I tell them that it includes my secret sauce.
The Bible reveals that the secret sauce of the Christian life is love. Love is not simply a virtue of the Christian life; it is the Christian life. It is the oxygen of the Kingdom. There is no life without it. Everything — the spiritual gifts, prophecy, knowledge, wisdom — will come to an end, but love knows no end.
1 Corinthians 13:13 GNT Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
On the very evening before His crucifixion, our Lord gave us a “new commandment” that supersedes the others not only in attitude, but also in action.
A New Rule
John 13:34-35 GNT And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
A casual reading of this text might tempt the reader to pass over two very important words. For one, this is a commandment. It is not a suggestion or a mere option. It has behind it all the authority of the Godhead. And it is a new commandment. Although the language of the New Testament reveals that this commandment is not new in time (God’s love has been around forever), this commandment is new in its expression.
Until the crucifixion, the best we could do was to live on the level of the old commandment.
Leviticus 19:18 GNT Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the Lord .
Jesus made this a part of the Second Great Commandment.
Matthew 22:37-40 GNT Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This self-love is a love with limits. It is often conditional on such matters as time or conduct, situations or social standing. It can lend itself to selfishness because it speaks of a self-love. It can also be changeable and fickle.
But real love is expressed by a new rule. For thirty-three years Jesus gave us a picture of how real love was to be evidenced. Up until then, the best we could do was to live on the level of the old commandment of self-love. In essence, Jesus said, “For over three decades now I have shown you real love. I am about to leave you, so before I go, a new commandment I am giving you. No longer are you to love one another as you love yourself, but ‘as I have loved you.’”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NIV Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love is the secret sauce of the Christian! Love in every circumstance. Love to every person whether friend of someone who chooses to be an enemy. Love if we agree or disagree. Love whether we’re Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Green Party, Libertarian, or otherwise. Love if we’re POC or white. Love. Full stop. Love is the key. It’s a commandment.
John spoke of one’s love for another as “a new command”.
1 John 2:8 GNT However, the command I now write you is new, because its truth is seen in Christ and also in you. For the darkness is passing away, and the real light is already shining.
Jesus also called it a new commandment.
Matthew 5:43-45 GNT “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your friends, hate your enemies.’ But now I tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the children of your Father in heaven. For he makes his sun to shine on bad and good people alike, and gives rain to those who do good and to those who do evil.
Jesus also indicated that it was an old commandment when He said that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In fact He said that it was the second greatest commandment and along with the first one, which was to love God, took care of all the other commandments and the prophets.
Mark 12:29-31 GNT Jesus replied, “The most important one is this: ‘Listen, Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.”
So how can a command be both old and new?
It is old commandment but new in freshness; it is old in principle but new in practice.
The command to “love one another” comes from one of the oldest known laws of God.
Leviticus 19:18 GNT Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the Lord .
But it becomes a refreshingly new command as it is restated and demonstrated in Jesus Christ.
As Christians grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, each new day brings the light of greater knowledge—and at the same time, a new unfolding of the unfathomable depths of His love
Secret Sauce
When people ask me the secret of my delicious, homemade barbecue sauce I tell them that it includes my secret sauce.
The Bible reveals that the secret sauce of the Christian life is love. Love is not simply a virtue of the Christian life; it is the Christian life. It is the oxygen of the Kingdom. There is no life without it. Everything — the spiritual gifts, prophecy, knowledge, wisdom — will come to an end, but love knows no end.
1 Corinthians 13:13 GNT Meanwhile these three remain: faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is love.
On the very evening before His crucifixion, our Lord gave us a “new commandment” that supersedes the others not only in attitude, but also in action.
A New Rule
John 13:34-35 GNT And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
A casual reading of this text might tempt the reader to pass over two very important words. For one, this is a commandment. It is not a suggestion or a mere option. It has behind it all the authority of the Godhead. And it is a new commandment. Although the language of the New Testament reveals that this commandment is not new in time (God’s love has been around forever), this commandment is new in its expression.
Until the crucifixion, the best we could do was to live on the level of the old commandment.
Leviticus 19:18 GNT Do not take revenge on others or continue to hate them, but love your neighbors as you love yourself. I am the Lord .
Jesus made this a part of the Second Great Commandment.
Matthew 22:37-40 GNT Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and the most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This self-love is a love with limits. It is often conditional on such matters as time or conduct, situations or social standing. It can lend itself to selfishness because it speaks of a self-love. It can also be changeable and fickle.
But real love is expressed by a new rule. For thirty-three years Jesus gave us a picture of how real love was to be evidenced. Up until then, the best we could do was to live on the level of the old commandment of self-love. In essence, Jesus said, “For over three decades now I have shown you real love. I am about to leave you, so before I go, a new commandment I am giving you. No longer are you to love one another as you love yourself, but ‘as I have loved you.’”
A Natural Reaction
We are totally incapable of loving like this on our own. The only way this can become a natural reaction for us is to experientially know the love of Christ in our own hearts. This new commandment changes things. No longer are we to love on that self level. Now, we are to love as Jesus loved us — unconditionally. Once we receive His love, we are to release it to others in the same way He loves us. Talk about revolutionary thinking, here it is personified.
In order to love others on this level, we must know the kind of love Jesus loves us with. His love is unlimited.
Romans 8:38-39 GNT For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below—there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not only is Christ’s love to us unlimited, but it is also unconditional. It is not conditioned upon time or conduct or situations that may be in play.
Ephesians 3:16-18 GNT I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love.
His love is also unselfish, so much so that it took Him all the way to the cross. And of course, we should note that His love is also unchangeable.
Hebrews 13:8 GNT Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Thus, as we beat out our love relationships on the anvil of our own personal experience, we will love others with a love that is unlimited, unconditional, unselfish, and unchangeable. That is, if we love others as Jesus has loved us.
What is the result of this type of love?
John 13:35 GNT If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
1 John 4:7-8 GNT Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 3:14 GNT We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death.
Yes, love is the Christian life. It is the oxygen of the Kingdom. It is the acid test of our own discipleship. God did not write in the sky or send a tract in order to reveal His love toward us. He sent His Son. Love did that. He demonstrated His love to us.
We are totally incapable of loving like this on our own. The only way this can become a natural reaction for us is to experientially know the love of Christ in our own hearts. This new commandment changes things. No longer are we to love on that self level. Now, we are to love as Jesus loved us — unconditionally. Once we receive His love, we are to release it to others in the same way He loves us. Talk about revolutionary thinking, here it is personified.
In order to love others on this level, we must know the kind of love Jesus loves us with. His love is unlimited.
Romans 8:38-39 GNT For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below—there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord.
Not only is Christ’s love to us unlimited, but it is also unconditional. It is not conditioned upon time or conduct or situations that may be in play.
Ephesians 3:16-18 GNT I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love.
His love is also unselfish, so much so that it took Him all the way to the cross. And of course, we should note that His love is also unchangeable.
Hebrews 13:8 GNT Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Thus, as we beat out our love relationships on the anvil of our own personal experience, we will love others with a love that is unlimited, unconditional, unselfish, and unchangeable. That is, if we love others as Jesus has loved us.
What is the result of this type of love?
John 13:35 GNT If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
1 John 4:7-8 GNT Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 3:14 GNT We know that we have left death and come over into life; we know it because we love others. Those who do not love are still under the power of death.
Yes, love is the Christian life. It is the oxygen of the Kingdom. It is the acid test of our own discipleship. God did not write in the sky or send a tract in order to reveal His love toward us. He sent His Son. Love did that. He demonstrated His love to us.
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