Love One Another — R. Edward Miller

Christ's Commandment to Love One Another

This is my commandment that I've given to you. This is my commandment, that you love one another. Last night we spoke on faith. You said, believe my word. You know, that's a hard word to believe, that we can love one another, because we're not very lovely people.

Love in the Home and in Marriage

And the hardest place for love is at home, because we see too closely the faults and errors and mistakes. He said, this is the love I want. And he goes on to say, when he said love one another, he said, greater love has no man than this, that I lay down his life for his friends, and you are my friends.

Christ's Sacrificial Love

And I love you so much, I'm going to lay my life down. That's how much. As one said, how much do you love me? The Lord stretched out his hands and said, and I love you that much. In the book of Matthew he said, on this commandment hangs all the law and the prophets.

God's Unchanging Love and the Command to Love at Home

God didn't start loving in Christ, he started loving when he made man. He never stopped. He never, never stopped. And he has such a, I say, a hard time getting us to accept that kind of love into our hearts, to believe that we can love, in spite of, above, and beyond, all the human failures and traits and ugliness that manifest.

And sorry to say, we manifest more with our friends than with our enemies. That's why Jesus gave, or I should say the apostles gave, a special commandment to men, love your wives. And another commandment to women, love your husbands.

That's where it all is. That's where it all is. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And when he was leaving now, it was just a night before he died for them, he said, I'm leaving you one commandment, just one.

Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. He didn't say judge one another. He didn't say purify one another. He didn't say teach one another. He said love one another. Because love covers a multitude of sin, the scriptures say.

The Holy Spirit's Comfort for the Wounded

And the Holy Spirit tonight wants to bring you all into that flow of divine love. He does that to us once in a while. Someday we'll stay there forever. But on this earth, it's pretty hard to stay there.

But once in a while, he said, I just want to love you. I just want to love you. That's all. I just want you to realize I care. I just want you to know that I know what you're going through. I know the broken hearts.

I know the demonic attacks. I know the valleys of misery. I know the tears. We have a song we sing. He says, I saw those tears you wept in the night. No one saw. I saw them. He knows. And even though for many reasons he cannot stop them at that point of time, but he can care and love.

And you know, it's amazing what medicine does. One of the finest healing medicines I know, on a bruised knee or a skinned elbow, is a mother's kiss. You ever found that out? The tears dry up the mother's arms.

A kiss on the bruise somehow just has such a magic of healing, and out we go to play again. It wasn't some antibiotic. It wasn't some balm or oil or grease or liquid or burning alcohol. And that's the commandment he gave.

Faith to Love the Unlovely

And I think perhaps it takes more faith, more believing, to be able to hold love for people that aren't lovely as far as we're concerned, and especially people that are close to us. And yet, he said, that's the only command before he died.

He said, I want you to love. And he says, there's no love like the love that will give his life for his friends. And they didn't realize that with less than 24 hours, he would have given his life for his friends.

And he said, you are my friend. I often think that in Gethsemane, when he was agonizing, he said, Father, if there's any other way. And then he stopped, and he got up and walked over to where his disciples were, and they were all sleeping.

Before he woke them up, he looked at them, and he said, if I don't, they will all die. Die in their sins. Father, if I don't, my friends will never live. Back to prayer again. Back to prayer. Father, if there's any other way, that this cup, any other way.

He prayed, if not, then he went back to look at his friends again. There they were, sleeping. You know, we're all angels when we sleep. It's just when we're awake, we're in trouble. He looked at them.

They were sleeping. Father, your will be done. Gave his life for his friends. That's how much he loved. Someday that divine love will flow through every heart. But even now, by faith, we can have that love that will rise up and overlook and cover a multitude of sins.

The Human Cry to Be Loved

Not that we deserve love. I don't think any of us do. But love doesn't ask for pay, and it doesn't ask for what we deserve. And in the heart of almost every human being, there is a cry. And nobody hears it.

But it's a strange cry. And it's a cry, Love me. And you know, one of the bitterest things that a person can suck on is to believe or to realize or to think you realize, nobody really loves me. Nobody cares about my life.

And those are people that oftentimes just go ahead and commit suicide. Nobody cares. Because we're all created to be loved, but we're all created to love. And when that love is frustrated, it frustrates a life more than anything else.

And I was pondering today about that one commandment. Just one. Moses gave ten, and the Jewish rabbis wrote hundreds of them, and all the things we ought to do. But Jesus said, just one. And on that one, hang all the law and the prophets.

Just that one. Just love. Especially hard it is to love when we've been hurt. Especially hard it is. And that's why it's so amazing to me that Christ, who was hurt to the ultimate, hurt and reproached and shamed and then crucified, and then on the cross in the agony, Father, Father, forgive them.

Forgiveness at the Cross and Love's Victory

They don't know. That love never stopped. Not even under such agony and such injustice and such reproach and such shame. For perhaps a few seconds, for perhaps a minute, the whole universe came to a stop when the heart so full of love was broken.

Blood and water rushed out of it. That heart of love, that heart of God himself, stopped. Everything in heaven and earth stopped. Even the sun stopped. The earth trembled. It immediately started again on the other side.

It didn't stay stopped. In three days, he said, you're not going to keep me away. I love you too much. Back again. Love covers a multitude of sins. He said, this one commandment I leave you. This one commandment.

Believing in the Indwelling Love of the Father and Son

Can you believe me? Philip, can you believe that I'm in God and God's in me? My Father and I are one. If I love you, so does my Father. And we love you. And if you love us, we'll come in and dwell with you.

Can you believe me? Can we believe one step further? That he can so fill your heart with his Holy Spirit, so fill your heart, that you can love the people that are unlovely and live right next door. Or maybe, right in your own house.

That's a leap of faith, isn't it? That's a leap to believe that he can so fill you with that heart of his, with his Holy Presence, Holy Spirit, that you can love even those. Father, I can't understand such love.

It's too big for me. But I dare to believe that you put that love in human hearts that goes beyond all the naturals, goes beyond all the hurts and all the evil that humanity can invent and still love.

Receiving God's Forgiveness and Healing

Thank you for that. I thank you that as much as I have hurt you and as much as I disobeyed you and as much as I am totally unworthy, every time I've come to you, you never reproached me, not once. You never questioned.

You just opened your arms and said, I know, come. And healed the bruises, a bruised heart, a bruised mind, a bruised ego. You just opened your arms and said, come. It's all right. I'll make it right. If you broke a heart, I'll heal it.

If you broke someone else's heart, I'll heal it. You've never said, you've never said, go away. You've never said, you can't come. You just opened your arms and said, come. You said, this is my commandment.

I'm sorry he had to give it as a commandment. But he had to. But can we believe for it? Can we believe to the point we can say, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Can we open our hearts to God himself, when we feel that he's the one that's been giving us all the misery and blaming him for the pain and the sorrow.

Can we even go that far and say, Father, it's all right. It doesn't matter. I won't hold my pain and sorrow against you. You didn't sin, I did. And you haven't treated me like I deserved anyway. I forgive you.

But please forgive me. For I've hurt you so much more than you've ever hurt me. For I'm just a tiny creature that you could step on. But you're the greatest of all creatures, the greatest of all beings, creator of self.

I have hurt you and you've forgiven me. Once more I say I'm sorry, but you never reproach me. Let that faith come into hearts that we can love one another. And look at what they've done and look at it.

And as we look, it shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until we say it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What matters is to hold it in my heart as a grudge or as a resentment or as a hurt that won't heal.

Love as the Mark of Christ's Disciples

I and my father are one, he said. Philip, can you believe that? We love you just the same. Philip, can you believe that? Can you believe enough that you'll be one of my disciples and this is how they will know you're one of my disciples because you love one another.

Prayer for Healing and Love in the Home

And so, Father, I pray that as you're moving tonight, kiss the bruises, pick up the brokenhearted into your arms, let there be a healing and let there be a faith generated by your Holy Spirit that it can release a love even at home.