PASTOR'S CORNER

  John 13:31-35 A new commandment Jesus gives to His disciples, to which is passed on to all those who are His. “Love one another” (v34)  To love one another is to love fellow believers as Christ loves us.  Those who love like Christ in the Holy Spirit’s power, will give evidence that they are disciples, or learners, of Jesus Christ.  The early church demonstrated this commandment well as the Roman society took notice of them. “At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries. And Roman society took note. Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim, “See how they love one another!”  Justin Martyr sketched the commandment of Christian love this way. “We who used to value the acquisition of wealth and possessions more than anything else now bring what we have into a common fund and share it with anyone who needs it. We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to...

  John 13:18-30   It is one thing to be hated by your enemy, but to be betrayed by a friend is one of the darkest experiences that anyone could endure.  In the ancient Near East, to betray a friend was considered a heinous crime , but far more heinous was to betray a friend . With whom one shared bread with.  How could a person who had spent three-plus years with Jesus, as one of his most intimate followers, turn against Him and betray Him?  It is hard to understand, and yet he did .  Judas’ betrayal was a dark time. A time when the spiritual forces of evil were doing their best to put out the light that Jesus had brought.  Nighttime usually brings out the worst kinds of people. Usually, a greater evil presents itself more freely in the darkness.  Darkness in its proper context usually represents unbelief, sin, and evil according to the Scriptures.  To which darkness is usually is associated with: death, ignorance, and those things whi...