A New Love

(7) Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you;

rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning.

This old commandment - to love one another - is the same message you heard before.

(8) Yet it is also new.  Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it.  

For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.

1 John 2: 7-8 NLT

Why fix something that isn't broken?  The commandment for loving others had not changed since the beginning of time.  God would never change his mind, in fact, the basis of all that He has ever done for us is love.  But was love hard to understand before Jesus came along?  Did we have the perfect example of love to use as a guideline?  Of course God showed people love over and over again from his creation, to the promise of a rainbow, through promising children to the barren, saving people from fire and lions, leading people out of danger and providing resources along the way, the list goes on and continues today.  God is love, but what a gift we were given in Jesus.  Not only did we know about the great love of God but now, through Jesus, we could witness the love of God in a more relatable way.  Jesus was human like us and the love he showed to others was remarkable and out of this world.  God's command to love others took on a whole new meaning when Jesus entered the picture.  We could watch a man selflessly comfort a broken woman, see a man tenderly accept a broken man, we experienced a man lay down His life for the lives of many.  In Jesus we have the best example of love, the true example of love.  Yet God's commandment to love others was old, in Jesus, it was made new.  Jesus was the living example of what God commanded us to do in the beginning of time.  

"So now I am giving you a new commandment: love each other. 

Just as I have loved you, you should love each other."

John 13:34

Jesus declared that he was the definition of love.  We were to follow his unselfish example and love sacrificially.  Like Christ we are to put others first, sacrificing our time, our resources, and our selfish desires.  Jesus is the true example of love and we are commanded to follow Him.  Loving like Jesus is the only way to love well and the only way we will stay in the light.