John 13:33-35
Love One Another
33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
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.”
John 15:9-17
Love One Another
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
John 17:20-26
A Prayer For All Believers
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
Luke 10:25-28
Love God and Love Neighbor
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”
We can hardly read or go to any page of the four gospels and not find something about love, something about forgiveness, something about hope, something about justice and righteousness, and something about faith in God...These ideals and teachings are part of what makes Jesus, Jesus, and Christians, Christians...
Jesus makes it very clear we are to love one another and to love God...Jesus forever ties God and man together with love...This is much what Jesus taught in His Good News...
And as we read about Christianity starting and then coming together, Jesus wants us to join together in this unity as believers....He talks about a Great Fellowship of Enjoinment.
When Jesus prayed in His High Priestly pray for all believers before His arrest, it is a prayer of unity for all believers...Jesus is praying for those who believe in His Gospel, in His Good News...He prays that all believers maybe one, just like He and God are One...He goes on to say that He gives believers glory that we who believe in Him..hristians are united by love for one another, and that we may be one and live together as one, as He and the Father are One...And if Jesus is in us, and remains in us, then we will be brought to a complete unity...And when Christians are in this Complete Unity, all the world will know that God did send His Son to earth, to dwell among us and teach us the Good News of His Gospel...
And love is involved in the gospel and His teachings and this prayer for believers....How can we be united without love?...Love links people together and love keeps people together...Love brings a harmony to relationships...We are to love one other as He LOVES us, and as God LOVES His Son...Jesus made God more known to the world and He will continue to make His Father even more known to all nations and people, so that the LOVE God has for Jesus may be in all believers and that Jesus Himself will be in us through the Holy Spirit...He pledges the He will continue to make God more known to the world...And as He finishes His High Priestly prayer for believers, He says, “Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me...I have made You known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the LOVE You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them.”...We see that Jesus talks about God's Righteousness...And Righteousness is Truth, and Jesus is the Absolute Truth...Absolute Truth can only do what is Right...And love is related and linked to righteousness and truth...
When we all love God and all love each other and live by this Righteousness and Truth, then the world will be in harmony...