⁷ Dear friends, I am not writ­ing a new com­mand­ment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very begin­ning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same mes­sage you heard before. ⁸ Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this com­mand­ment, and you also are liv­ing it. For the dark­ness is dis­ap­pear­ing, and the true light is already shin­ing.⁹ If any­one claims, “I am liv­ing in the light,” but hates a Chris­t­ian brother or sister, that per­son is still liv­ing in dark­ness. ¹⁰ Any­one who loves another brother or sis­ter is liv­ing in the light and does not cause oth­ers to stum­ble. ¹¹ But any­one who hates another brother or sis­ter is still liv­ing and walk­ing in dark­ness. Such a per­son does not know the way to go, hav­ing been blinded by the darkness.

¹² I am writ­ing to you who are God’s chil­dren because your sins have been for­given through Jesus.
¹³ I am writ­ing to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the begin­ning.
I am writ­ing to you who are young in the faith because you have won your bat­tle with the evil one.
¹⁴ I have writ­ten to you who are God’s chil­dren because you know the Father.
I have writ­ten to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the begin­ning.
I have writ­ten to you who are young in the faith because you are strong.
God’s word lives in your hearts, and you have won your bat­tle with the evil one.

Love One Another

John reminds his read­ers of the pri­mal com­mand­ment of Jesus and then breaks out in a song that would have been very famil­iar to his read­ers. That com­man­de­ment? Love others.

It’s an old com­mand­ment in that it has been a pri­mary mes­sage of the Bible since Gen­e­sis. But it’s a new com­mand­ment because Jesus, when asked what the great­est com­mand­ment was, sum­ma­rized all the com­mand­ments in the Old Tes­ta­ment when he said, “Love God and love others.”

In this pas­sage, John focuses on the lov­ing oth­ers part.

Look, at some point we’re going to have to accept that lov­ing oth­ers is not optional for the fol­lower of Christ. It’s not a sug­ges­tion. It’s manda­tory. Yes­ter­day, John chal­lenged us to prove that we love God through our actions. We are chal­lenged to do the same when it comes to lov­ing oth­ers. Don’t just say you love oth­ers, prove it. Demon­strate it. Show oth­ers that you love them.

For some rea­son, this isn’t easy for us to do. We strug­gle with it.

So, my chal­lenge for you today is to make a deci­sion to demon­strate love to at least one person.

My prayer: Lord, help me love oth­ers. Not only with my words, but with my actions. Show me ways that I can demon­strate that love. Give me cre­ativ­ity in ful­fill­ing the com­mands of Jesus to love you and love oth­ers. Amen.

Until tomor­row.

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