{"id":547,"date":"2015-08-15T21:13:08","date_gmt":"2015-08-15T21:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ambassadorsofchrist.info\/aoc\/?p=547"},"modified":"2015-08-15T21:13:08","modified_gmt":"2015-08-15T21:13:08","slug":"love-and-its-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.log.ambassadorsofchrist.info\/aoc\/august\/love-and-its-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and its evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love is a profoundly tender, passionate affection towards another person. For someone to know that you love him\/her certain things relation wise have to happen. For example, in a cold day a man takes off his coat an places it over his girl friends shoulders, or a mother leaves her baby in the care of an older sibling and with just a sweater and some boots goes out in a cold wintry day to a distant store to buy mild. The famous 1 Corinthians 13<\/a> illustrates some profound characteristics of love; it is patient, kind, believes all, bears all, hopes, never fails. With love one never has to find himself trying to prove anything, unless something happened that put love to question. Having to prove ones love to another is one of the hardest things to do and it might really take climbing the highest mountains, swimming the deepest sea to make it happen. The bible calls us to love the Lord our God with all our strength, heart and mind (Deut 6:5), but once we have stopped loving him some might finding it not so easy to get back \u00a0up.<\/p>\n

John 21:7<\/p>\n

7 Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, \u201cIt is the Lord!\u201d As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, \u201cIt is the Lord,\u201d he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water.<\/p>\n

Two of the disciples that stood out with regards to loving Jesus was Peter and John (the disciple who loved Jesus). \u00a0Peter loved Jesus and\u00a0throughout the ministry time he was the De facto the spokesperson of the disciples. He was within the inner circle of Jesus and the one who confessed Jesus as the Messiah first. \u00a0Peter had many experiences with Jesus; he walked on waters, saw Jesus transfigured, rebuked Jesus, drew a sword in defense of Jesus and denied Jesus. His denial of Jesus put his love to question. So, Jesus asked him three times the ultimate question \u201cSimon son of John, do you love me more than these?\u201d(v15). This question had several purposes and one was to make him to refocus\u00a0his commitment to loving Jesus and not to loose hope; after all not too long back he had denied the Lord. Peter jumping into the water and swimming to Jesus can be seen as an act to prove his love towards the Lord. After the ultimate question to Peter of whether he loved Jesus was to\u00a0prove it command “Feed my sheep”.<\/p>\n

Now, the other disciple who loved Jesus was on the boat too and he did not feel the need to jump out of the boat to prove his love for the Lord. John (the son of Zebedee) is known as the disciple who loved Jesus. He is not mentioned too often he just appears to be mentioned several times with Peter. This is the disciple that appears to be leaning unto Jesus’ bosom\u00a0at the Lord’s supper. He was one of the inner circle apostles of the Lord, yet his name is not often mentioned. He is the writer of the gospel of John. John’s act of love meets the characteristics of 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 where he did not loose hope even after witnessing Christ’s death.<\/p>\n

Two disciples with distinct characteristics loved Jesus. \u00a0Peter found himself with the need to prove his love for Jesus maybe because of his denial. There is a covenant or an agreement of love between God and man. God kept his part in John 3:16, but what about us? How are we keeping our end of loving God? There are some awesome benefits that follow those who love the Lord such as prosperity (deut. 11:12-14).<\/p>\n

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