John 13:34-35
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.”
Matthew 7:12
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do to You
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
Matthew 22:37-40
Love Your Neighbor as You Love Yourself
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
1 Peter 4:8
Love Each Other Deeply
8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Love is something everyone wants and needs...Love is a powerful force...Love is what the Bible teaches...The Great Commandments are all about love...So, it is not surprising that Jesus told His disciples to love one another...And when they loved each other then everyone would know that they were His disciples...
This simple teaching of loving one another seems relatively simple, straightforward, and easy...But it is not...Trying to love someone all the time is, especially, not an easy one to follow...Jesus says it is a new command, and since He says this and it pertains to Him specifically (when He says as I have loved you -then it does become specific), then it is a new command from Him...This love, He is talking about might imply to love your neighbor as yourself, or to do unto others as you would have them do unto you...
I have read where one of the reasons people lose their belief in Christianity is the way Christians treat others...How followers of Jesus act and behave around others, impacts who His followers are and the numbers of His followers...We are told and taught to love one another, but we cannot do it all the time...We try, but getting tired, bored, sick, overworked, just plain forgetting, we complain and forget to love one another...We mess up...We get onto other things...And maybe we are brought up and raised in such a way, it is hard to feel love all the time...And at times, as we watch TV and movies a few parents and their parents showed love and did things in their own way, and things got handed down to them, that maybe at times were not the kindest and gentlest of ways...So sometimes maybe from things from the past ways (something got amiss) and just got out of sorts, including feelings and love and kindness toward others...And in these times only love can help these situations...
If it is hard to love even the ones we most care about one hundred percent of the time as it seems, since we are human, let alone others we do not know or have a friendship or an acquaintance with...But we know that love helps with many, many, many things...Love and loving ways helps to fix things...Love not only covers a multitude of our sins, it helps us treat others both gentler and kinder and better...
How we treat our neighbors gets noticed...So when we love our neighbors as we love ourselves and when we do unto our neighbors as we do to ourselves, other people can easier see that we are His followers...