Matterofprayer: A Year of Everyday Prayers – Wednesday, July 15, 2015
They’ll Know—By Our Love
Loving God. What’s more, showing that I love God. How? By loving others.
This book Praying the New Testament as Psalms has quite a number of adaptations of different passages from Scripture. The verse in the modern psalm that particularly moved me tonight came from John 13. “By the love I have for others/let me be recognized as a disciple of Jesus.” [1]
Yes, the Gospel of John has a tremendous number of verses showing love, and caring, and faith. However, showing that we love God (as described in John 13) immediately brought another passage from the Gospel of Mark to my mind.
Mark describes the situation with the Greatest Commandment, found in Mark 11. The man asked Jesus: “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
This guy gets it. Whatever he did with the rest of his life, he understood what the Rabbi Jesus was sharing here, with this statement. And, he even knew that loving God and loving others held so much importance. Even more importance than burnt offerings and sacrifices.
I wonder, Lord, how many people in Jesus’ day really understood why He came? I wonder, Lord, how many people realize why Jesus came—today?
Dear Lord, help me to follow You. (That’s the main thing. The important thing.) And, this second request is much more secondary; but if I am to be recognized by others for following You, help me always to point to You. Amen, and amen.
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[1] Praying the New Testament as Psalms, Desmond O’Donnell, OMI, and Maureen Mohen, RSM, (United States of America: ACTA Publications, 2002.), 126.
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