Abide In Christ - Day 26 - And In Love To Fellow Believers

Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray

Day 26

And In Love To Fellow Believers

“This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

“As the Father loved me, I also have loved you…” (John 15:9). “As I have loved you...you also love one another" (John 13:34). God became man. Divine love began to run in the channel of a human heart...it becomes the love of man to man. The love that fills heaven and eternity is to be daily seen here in the life of earth and of time.

"This is my commandment," the Savior says, "That you love one another, as I have loved you." He sometimes spoke of commandments, but love, which is the fulfilling of the law, is the all-including one, and therefore is called His commandment — the new commandment. It is to be the great evidence of the reality of the New Covenant, of the power of the new life revealed in Jesus Christ. It is to be the one convincing and indisputable token of discipleship: "By this all will know that you are My disciples..." (John 13:35). "That they also may be one in us...that the world may believe..." (John 17:21). "That they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that You have.. loved them, as You have loved me” (John 17:23). To the believer seeking perfect fellowship with Christ, the keeping of this commandment is both the blessed proof that he is abiding in Him and the path to a fuller and more perfect union.

Let us try to understand how this is so. We know that God is love, and that Christ came to reveal this, not as a doctrine, but as a life. His life, in its wonderful self-abasement and self-sacrifice, was, above everything, the embodiment of Divine love, the showing forth to men, in such human manifestations as they could understand, how God loves. In His love to the unworthy and the ungrateful, in His humbling Himself to walk among men as a servant, in His giving Himself up to death, He simply lived and acted out the life of the Divine love which was in the heart of God. He lived and died to show us the love of the Father.

And now, just as Christ was to show forth God's love, believers are to show forth to the world the love of Christ. They are to prove to men and to women that Christ loves them, and in loving fills them with a love that is not of earth. They, by living and by loving just as He did, are to be perpetual witnesses to the love that gave itself to die. He loved so that even the Jews cried out at Bethany at the grave of Lazarus, "Behold how He loved!" (John 11:36). Christians are to live so that men are compelled to say, "See how these Christians love one another." In their daily intercourse with each other, Christians are made a display to God, to angels, and to men; and in the Christ-likeness of their love to each other, are to prove what manner of spirit they are of. Amid all diversity of character or of creed, of language or of station, they are to prove that love has made them members of one body, and of each other, and has taught them each to forget and sacrifice self for the sake of the other. Their life of love is the chief evidence of Christianity, the proof to the world that God sent Christ, and that He has shed abroad in them the same love with which He loved Him. Of all the evidences of Christianity, this is the mightiest and the most convincing.

This love of Christ's disciples to each other occupies a central position between their love to God and to all men. It is the test of their love to God, whom they cannot see. The love to one unseen could so easily be thought of as a mere sentiment, or even as imagination. Love to God is really displayed in the loving interactions between God's children, and shows itself in deeds that the Father accepts as done to Himself. It can only be proven to be true this way. Love to fellow believers is the flower and fruit of the root, unseen in the heart, of love to God. And this fruit again becomes the seed of love to all men. In their interactions with each other is found the school in which believers are trained and strengthened to love their fellow-men, who are still outside of Christ, not simply with the liking that rests on points of agreement, but with the holy love that takes hold of the unworthiest, and bears with the most disagreeable for Jesus' sake. It is love to each other as disciples that is always put in the foreground as the link between love to God alone and to men in general.

This brotherly love finds the example for its conduct in Christ's relationship with His disciples, . As it studies His forgiveness and forbearance towards His friends, with the seventy times seven as its only measure — as it looks to His unwearied patience and His infinite humility — as it sees the meekness and lowliness with which He seeks to win for Himself a place as their servant, wholly devoted to their interests — it accepts with gladness His command, "You should do as I have done" (John 13:15). Following His example, each one of us is to live not for ourselves, but for each other. The law of kindness is on our tongues, for love has vowed that never shall one unkind word cross its lips. In following that example, we refuse not only to speak, but even to hear or to think evil. We are more jealous of the name and character of our fellow-Christian than of our own. My own good name I may leave to the Father. My Father has entrusted my brother’s good name to me. In gentleness and loving-kindness, in courtesy and generosity, in self-sacrifice and charity, in its life of blessing and of beauty, the Divine love, which has been shed abroad in the believer's heart, shines out as it shone in the life of Jesus.

Christian! What do you say of this glorious calling of yours to love like Christ? Does your heart not leap at the thought of the unspeakable privilege of showing forth the likeness of the Eternal Love in this way? Or are you rather ready to sigh at the thought of the inaccessible height of perfection to which you are thus called to climb? Fellow believer, do not sigh at what is indeed the highest token of the Father's love, that He has called us to be like Christ in our love, just as He was like the Father in His love. Understand that He who gave the command in such close connection with His teaching about the Vine and the abiding in Him, gave us, in that same teaching, the assurance that we only have to abide in Him to be able to love like Him. Accept the command as a new motive to a fuller abiding in Christ.

Regard the abiding in Him more than ever as an abiding in His love. Rooted and grounded daily in a love that passes knowledge, you receive its fullness and learn to love. With Christ abiding in you, the Holy Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in your heart, and you love the brethren, the most trying and unlovable, with a love that is not your own, but with the love of Christ in you. And the command about your love to fellow believers is changed from a burden to a joy, if you only keep it linked, as Jesus linked it, to the command about His love to you : ''Abide in my love...love one another, as I have loved you."

'This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you." Is not this now some of the “much fruit” that Jesus has promised we shall bear? Indeed, it is like a cluster of the grapes of Canaan, with which we can prove to others that the land of promise is indeed a good land. Let us try in all simplicity and honesty to go out of our homes to translate the language of high faith and heavenly enthusiasm into the plain prose of daily conduct, so that all men can understand it.

Let our temper be under the rule of the love of Jesus. Without our consent, He cannot curb it. He alone can make us gentle and patient. Let the vow, that not an unkind word about others will ever be heard from our lips, be laid trustingly at His feet. Let the gentleness that refuses to take offence, that is always ready to excuse, to think and hope the best, mark our dealings with all. Let the love that seeks not itself, but ever is ready to wash others' feet, or even to give its life for them, be our aim as we abide in Jesus. Let our life be one of self-sacrifice, always studying the welfare of others, finding our highest joy in blessing others. And let us, in studying the Divine art of doing good, yield ourselves as obedient learners to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. By His grace, the most commonplace life can be transfigured with the brightness of a heavenly beauty, as the infinite love of the Divine nature shines out through our frail humanity. Fellow Christian, let us praise God! We are called to love as Jesus loves, as God loves.

“Abide in my love, and love as I have loved.” Bless God, it is possible. The new holy nature we have and which grows ever stronger as it abides in Christ the vine, can love as He did. Every discovery of the evil of the old nature, every longing desire to obey the command of our Lord, every experience of the power and the blessedness of loving with Jesus' love, will urge us to accept with fresh faith the blessed injunctions: "Abide in me, and I in you ;" "Abide in my love,"