7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Love One Another
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
The world seems divided, and we as mankind cannot quite get our divisiveness together...I have wondered what might get us together, where we quit making daily headlines...And my answer is this -love and understanding...The more you love the more understanding you have and want to have for others...Yet, we have love and understanding in this world...But it seems that it is not enough...Something is missing from these two ingredients of our love and our understanding...
What we need is Complete Understanding and Complete and Unfettered LOVE...We need the ability to completely love and understand ever single person of the world...We do not do this and we do not have this...As I said, we have some love and some understanding in our world, but the world is still divided...
Jesus Understands...He knows all things...And when Jesus told His Disciples that He was giving them a new command to love one another as He had LOVED them, was it a new commandment -He said?...The commandment did not seem fresh and new, when I first read it in the Gospel of John...It actually seems like an old message to me, even for the disciples long ago...Because after being around Jesus for three years, one would think that they knew that they should love one another, and also everybody...And shouldn't we too, know this...But that old message , yet new commandment still resonates today...Do we really love one another as Jesus LOVED His disciples?...I do not think so...I think we try, but our headlines show that we are far, far away from His message and the commandment that He gave His disciples and us...
The type of LOVE that Jesus is talking about is in His Kingdom and it completely engulfs His Kingdom...On earth, our love and understanding of others and all our neighbors is only scattered throughout the globe and is not here in the fullest of capacities...Our Greatest Hope in this world is in the One who talked about His Father continuously and gave us this New Commandment about love...It does not seem that we can do these things without Him and His Father...