Our Bible reading for today was John 13:33-35:

“Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.
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.” John 13:33-35 (NKJV)

When Jesus spoke these words, He knew that within the near hours and weeks, He will have given His life for our sins, risen, and ascended back to His Father. It is a critical time of instruction for His disciples and so this “new commandment” carries a lot of weight and is packed with meaning. The Kingdom of God does not have physical borders to fence-in and identify the children of God. There are not any visas or green cards to prove that we belong to Him. The Bible says, “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

For many people, they might list as proof of Kingdom citizenship some of the following: church membership, baptism, charitable giving, church attendance, interest in the Bible, an attempt to live a good upstanding moral life, etc. All of these things are worthy markers of a true citizen of God’s Kingdom, yet there is one thing that trumps them all according to Christ. Do you HAVE LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER? Can others see this love and know that you belong to a different world?
Today, I want to challenge you. Without a doubt, each one of us will face a situation where the “unlovable” people of this world will tempt us to act or respond in a worldly, ungodly fashion. When this happens, show them your citizenship. Don’t insist on your “rights”…but love them like Christ loves them. Why? Because you are a citizen of God’s Kingdom…represent Jesus well!

In the Bible, we discussed the following scripture: Romans 12:3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

How important it is not to “measure ourselves” or to think too highly of ourselves. Our self-judgments are subject to error because we are blinded by our own pride, our “measuring stick” is just plain wrong, and listen, it is God who gives success and gifts…they are not found in our own power and efforts.

I like the quote from the book, “God Can Use Nobodies” by James Montgomery Boice: “Moses spent the first 40 years of his life learning to be somebody. The next 40 years, he learn how to be a nobody. The last 40 years, Moses was taught that God is everything.

We may not have 120 years to settle this matter…Today, let’s give our lives to God…who is Everything

I witness God’s grace in a most unusual way this week. I call it unusual, yet I have had this same experience before. This was a week where I saw new life brought into the world, and where a much older life left this world for another.

Samuel David Cox

God blessed our family with the long awaited birth of Samuel David Cox on Monday. He is a good looking boy and the whole family believes that he is truly an unmerited gift from God. Angela is doing fine and Grandma Carolyn is having the time of her life as she helps out for a couple of weeks.

Job said that God gives and God takes away…Blessed be the name of the Lord. This week we also witnessed the home going of an elderly saint, Bertie Dempsey. She was a faithful pastor’s wife and a member of this church family for many years. For the past 21 years she has lived by herself. Yet I still witnessed the grace of God. She was 90 years old and yet her mind was clear and very sharp up until a couple of weeks before her death. It was God’s grace that made salvation possible for Sister Dempsey; that made the home going possible; and it was God’s grace that reunited her with her husband, James!

Grace. What a wonderful, wonderful word!