Love Reveals the Kingdom
Pause:
Before you start reading this devotional, take a moment to stop what you’re doing, slow down, and focus on Jesus.
Pray and ask Him to open your eyes to see as you read the Scriptures, and to open your ears to hear as you wait on the leading of the Spirit.
Read:
John 13:34-35: “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Going Deeper:
When I was in 5th grade, my family moved to Minnesota. I had to start over and make new friends. For some, this is easy. For me, as an introvert, it’s a challenge. To my relief, the majority of kids I met accepted and welcomed me. Different classmates invited me to their houses for dinner and movies and neighbors would invite me to play sports or games of capture the flag. In my mind, my transition to this new place was going great…until I met Ben.
Ben felt like a real-life Charlie Brown. He was the sort of kid who couldn’t kick a football but went for it anyway. He didn’t know the answer to questions in class but it didn’t stop him from trying. He did not know when to quit and was determined to succeed in everything, and the ‘Lucy’ types mocked him ruthlessly as he tripped over his words and feet. One of my closest friends saw Ben as low-hanging fruit and couldn’t resist picking on him. I laughed at the jokes and didn’t push back.
One day, my mom came into my class to help and met Ben. She saw how he was being treated and didn’t like it. She talked to my teacher and got more background on the situation. Around that time, I had developed what proved to be a short-lived fondness for golf. My mom told me, “you’re inviting Ben to play mini-golf.” I was mortified. She had no concern about what that would do to my reputation. I was new but well-liked to that point. Inviting Ben to a public social outing could risk it all.
Try as I might, there was no getting out of it. The day arrived and we met Ben at the driving range. It was awkward since we didn’t know each other and Ben was decidedly not a golfer. I thought moving to the putting green would be better for him but I must not have explained it and he must have never done it because he stepped up, took a full swing, and nearly broke my jaw as he caught me on his backswing. That about sums up the afternoon together. With that said, when my 5th-grade teacher heard we’d hung out, she broke down. She felt grieved by the way my class treated Ben and had little hope that he would make friends at school. Things didn’t change instantly for Ben, but he was no longer alone at school. One act of love and service (by my mom, really) opened up a whole new set of possibilities.
We live in a world that feels hopeless at times. In addition to unrest, uncertainty, calamity, and isolation, as a human race, we seem to collectively be unable to stop putting one another down. The public mocking, ridicule, and shaming that are now commonplace in our world and social media feeds are not unlike what you’ll find in a 5th-grade classroom. In John 13, Jesus teaches us an entirely different way to engage as His disciples in this world. It is love, not a tongue-lashing, that unveils the Kingdom and causes the world to take notice.
The world longs to see the love of Jesus in action. When we together welcome, serve, and care for one another, especially through differences and disagreements, the world pays attention. There will be awkward moments and sometimes it will hurt. We may need to overlook small offenses and work through bigger ones. However, if we press through to love each other deeply then our communities – North Park, Northridge, Durban, South Bay, Temecula – will see Jesus through us. What could be better than that?
Pray:
Respond to God in prayer by speaking to Him about what stood out to you from this passage this morning.
Listen:
What is the Holy Spirit saying to you this morning?
Apply:
What are you going to do in response to what God is saying to you from the text and by the Spirit?