TRUE CHRISTIAN LOVE - by Jim Tharp

John 13:34-35

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have

loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you

are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus came to earth in human form and was empowered to demonstrate what came to be known as agape love. Agape love is different from any other kind of love. Jesus longed for the day when His disciples would receive the Holy Spirit of power to love as He loved. This would happen when the Holy Spirit was poured out on 120 believers on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4).

During the few years of training His disciples He could see their lack of love for one another. A few of them would seek to take authority over the others. They argued about who would be the most powerful. It was at these times of selfish arguments that Jesus would interrupt and remind them of the time after His death, resurrection, and ascension back to Heaven that He and their Heavenly Father would pour out the Holy Spirit upon them. Their praying faithfully for the Holy Spirit and their complete surrender to His will would empower them for ministry. Jesus trained His disciples to share the message of His gospel. But they were not to go out trying to preach the gospel until they had been filled with the Holy Spirit. His final command to them just before His ascension was to go back into the city of Jerusalem and begin praying for the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4-5).

When those 120 believers were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts, chapters 1-5), they launched their first evangelistic service in Jerusalem where many thousands of people had gathered. That first gospel message preached by the apostle Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, brought conviction of sin and a desire to get right with God to 3,000 penitent sinners on that first day. These thousands were added to the church of 120, and we read about the gatherings of these new Christian believers for worship and fellowship. Those believers full of agape love were soon led of the Spirit to pray with the new Christians, many of whom soon experienced the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

The apostle Paul warned the Corinthian church, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things; endures all things. Love never fails. …” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8}.

As a minister of the Gospel, I am praying for all Christians in our churches to pray for a fresh filling of the Holy Spirit that will bring heart-warming love. If we do this, it could allow God to open the heavens and pour out on weak churches and a wicked world the greatest revival in the history of His church!