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Love—The Evidence of Discipleship, October 11
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another.
John 13:35
.
In this last meeting with His disciples, the great desire which Christ expressed
for them was that they might love one another as He had loved them. Again and
again He spoke of this. “These things I command you,” He said repeatedly, “that
ye love one another.” His very first injunction when alone with them in the upper
chamber was “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I
have loved you, that ye also love one another.” To the disciples this commandment
was new; for they had not loved one another as Christ had loved them. He saw that
new ideas and impulses must control them; that new principles must be practiced by
them; through His life and death they were to receive a new conception of love. The
command to love one another had a new meaning in the light of His self-sacrifice.
The whole work of grace is one continual service of love, of self-denying, self-
sacrificing effort. During every hour of Christ’s sojourn upon the earth, the love
of God was flowing from Him in irrepressible streams. All who are imbued with
His Spirit will love as He loved. The very principle that actuated Christ will actuate
them in all their dealing one with another.
This love is the evidence of their discipleship. “By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples,” said Jesus, “if ye have love one to another.” When men are
bound together, not by force or self-interest, but by love, they show the working of
an influence that is above every human influence. Where this oneness exists, it is
evidence that the image of God is being restored in humanity, that a new principle of
life has been implanted. It shows that there is power in the divine nature to withstand
the supernatural agencies of evil, and that the grace of God subdues the selfishness
inherent in the natural heart.
This love, manifested in the church, will surely stir the wrath of Satan. Christ
did not mark out for His disciples an easy path. “If the world hate you,” He said, “ye
know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would
love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you,
The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also
persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these
things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that
sent me.” The gospel is to be carried forward by aggressive warfare, in the midst of
opposition, peril, loss, and suffering. But those who do this work are only following
in their Master’s steps (
The Desire of Ages, 677, 678
).
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