Everlasting Love

It’s that time of year, after the holidays simmer and we start to look at a new year, where we might begin to feel the effects of the season and weather. I know, for me, after the excitement of Christmas has passed it doesn’t take long for the long nights and the cold weather to start to take its toll on me. And that’s why it’s always so important to remind ourselves regularly of who we are in God’s eyes.
A couple years back I was hit with the most severe depression that I had ever faced. In fact, I don’t know that I would have said I knew what depression felt like until that season in my life. And there were external circumstances that escalated that depression, but the onset and initial feelings were, I believe, primarily biological and physical. Though I’d had training in depression and understood it from a cognitive standpoint, it’s certainly not the same as actually experiencing it. And on those long, hard, lonely days I had to constantly remind myself of who God is and his great love for me.
And that’s so true for us at this time in our year, too. And not just now but we always need to be reminded of that great love God has for us. And we can tell ourselves that and we can believe that in our hearts, but, often, it is hard to feel it, especially when our bodies feel weak and our minds are anxious. And that’s why it’s so important for us to remember one of the last instructions of Jesus before he went to die on the cross.
In John 13.34, he says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (ESV) This new command isn’t really new because we’re told throughout the Bible that God’s people were to love each other. What was new was the extent of that love: ‘as Jesus has loved you.’ That’s sacrificial love. That’s death-on-a-cross love. That’s giving-up-of-me-to-love-you love.
And Jesus doesn’t say this, but I think we can imply that part of this love we are to show to each other helps us feel the great love that God has for us. In Jeremiah 31.3, we read, “I have loved you with an everlasting love...” (ESV) This everlasting love that God has for us is often hard to hold on to, especially when we don’t feel it. So, what if Jesus gave us the command to love each other so we felt the love of God more dynamically. What if, as followers of Jesus, we showed this eternal love to one another so that we all knew, more powerfully, that great love of God? I pray we do. God bless.