August 15
The Continual Burnt Offering" A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
The new commandment, “That you love one another,” is all-embracing. “Love,” we are told, “is the fulfillment of the law” (Romans 13:10). No one who truly loves his neighbor will ever be guilty of willfully breaking any of the commandments that set forth man’s duty to his fellow. We do not disobey parents when love is in exercise. We will not steal from those we love, nor will we lie about or defame them. To kill or corrupt by uncleanness would be unthinkable, and covetousness too is ruled out, for if I love my brother I do not want his goods, but rather rejoice in his possessions. But such love is not human. It is divine, and is only imparted by the Holy Spirit: so it is as we love God, the unseen, that we love our brothers also (1 John 4:20). Therefore where love rules, we are not under the law. We do not love in order to obtain merit, or to win the divine favor, but because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the indwelling Spirit, after we are justified by faith (Romans 5:1-5) and regenerated by the word of the Gospel (1 Peter 1:23-25). God is love. It is His very nature, and the man who is born again has become a partaker of that nature (2 Peter 1:4). So love is as characteristic of the real Christian as apples are characteristic of an apple tree.
Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love,
The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above.
—J. Fawcett