Friday 12 Nov 2021

November 12: 2 John 1:4-6
 
Key Verse: 2 John 1:5
And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another.
 
Devotion:
The writer addresses an elder in the church, a lady whom they knew well and knew they stood for the truth and followed Christ and His gospel. But, in amongst all this, they choose to include the commandment Jesus gave the disciples, the one which was said to be above all others, to love one another. This is not one of the commandments they would have learned from the old scriptures, but one which Jesus Himself had told the disciples.
 
Why did they expound on this commandment? Was it because there was something in her life where love should have been abounding? Was it because one of her children was not following the command to love others? We don’t know, but it should be a passage which makes us stop and think!
 
Jesus would always make sure people stopped and thought about what He was saying. He would encourage people to meditate on what they were hearing – not to just believe everything, but to study things and see if they agreed with what was the truth. Jesus made a point of highlighting this as a commandment, but in truth, it was nothing new.
 
If we stop and spend the time to go over the Old Testament, we will see how much of it points to us loving one another. Often, we see the Old Testament as full of wars killing many people and laws which were too hard to follow. But when we spend the time to study what it is about, we find it is God trying to teach us how to love each other without condition. If we really want to obey God, then we need to learn how to love each other without question.
 
Points to Ponder:
How many grudges do you hold?
 
Will you take them to God and try to love instead?