"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples" Jesus. John 13:35 (PM Version)
There is an outcome that is the proof of the pudding. There is a fruit that shows people what kind of tree you are, or that shows people which is the Rabbi/ teacher that you are in fact disciples/ students of.
You yourselves, not just your words, or you intentions, or your thoughts, or even actions, but the whole lot, amalgamated as these things are in a human self, are the fruit of me and my love, your lives are the fruit of me and my teaching/ training. You, not even just individually, an integrated individual self (except the new larger self that is made by the combination of all of us [pre-figured in little groups of these people who are thrown together throughout the Empire] into a self with a unified purpose, goal, approach, mind, and attitude), but a united new "body" of selves, that practice and display it (i.e. the kind of life, and bold love, of God's anointed Christ) more fully together, because there is more of a chance to do so from both sides (e.g. when there is misunderstanding, how does each work to minimise it, and bring true understanding [i.e. of the other], into their own mind and life and being, first).
And the life, and virulence, and thriving Shalom of the life of God's Christ, and his life's attitude (the meekness and yet boldness that is born from
- trust in God because of the trustworthiness of God,
- hope in God because of the inveterate hopefulness of God, and
- love of God (& of any reflections of him) because of the love we have experienced from God)
will be seen, not only in one (individual) life, but
in the life of the community who live around God's Christ, who are infected by this same attitude and kind of life, that is the attitude and kind of life of God.
And not only in that life seen in
- the body of the disciples of this Christ, but in
- the life that is passed on to others through them! i.e. we really see that their life is in fact LIVING, infective, vibrant, virulent, & a fertile kind of Godly life, when they can pass it on themselves to another group of people
- (etc).
Teach us your love oh Lord,
infect us with your love oh Lord,
fill us with your love oh Lord.
Use us to display your love oh Lord.
Help us to value and prize your love above all other things, oh Lord.
Oh LORD God, you have appointed your anointed Lord Christ over us, & we join with your choice, when we claim him as "Our Lord!"
We now see (along with Most Excellent Theo-philus; whom Luke is writing to, both his "gospel- of what Jesus began to do and teach" (Part One) & his "further Acts of the Holy Spirit of Jesus" (Part Two), & with the apostle Paul writing to new disciples of Jesus in Corinth) that God's Eternal Love, is manifested ultimately in God's Christ, & is the MOST EXCELLENT WAY, oh Lord.
We want to learn to reflect it and respond to it, above everything, oh Lord!
So, please, if I will not humble myself, please quickly utterly humiliate me, when I am not acting out of your love, motivated by your love, expressing your love. Burn out the nothingness from me, and make me something like you. That your springs of living water (your kind of loving life) might be flowing from this life, as it remains connected to its trunk, or stem, or vine.
"Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples" Jesus. John 13:35 (PM Version)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13 NIVUK
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because he first loved us. And he has given us this command: anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 John 4:7-9, 11-13, 16, 19-19, 21 NIVUK
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