Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions

 ³⁵  “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”  John 13:33-35.

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The central message of this Scripture for today is that Jesus commands us to love another.  This commandment is a good summary of what we read earlier in this chapter, namely, that we wash one another’s feet.  John 13:14.  As I wrote in the devotion for December 31, 2010, “Although we cannot clean each other from sin, we can be kind to each other and forgive each other and encourage each other and build each other up.”

This Scripture also reminds us that we can do more.  Love encompasses a lot more than being kind, forgiving, encouraging, and building up.

Love can include the act of a husband and father working hard to provide financial support for his family.  Love can include the act of a wife and mother cleaning toilets and changing diapers.  Of course, a husband and father should also clean toilets and change diapers, and a wife may be able to provide some financial support;  but love does not wait until the other person does what he or she thinks is that other person’s fair share before he or she does all that he or she can do out of love.

This Scripture drove me to the carpet in repentance early this morning.  Yesterday, I nitpicked both my wife and sons.  I hurt their feelings.  Rather, than doing all that I could do out of love, I criticized them for some small things that I thought they should do.

“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge;  and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  1 Corinthians 13:1-2.