John 15:12-17 This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you.… In the early spring, when the wheat is green and young, and scarcely appears above the ground, it springs in the lines in which it was sown, parted from one another and distinctly showing their separation, and the furrows. But, when the full corn in the ear waves on the autumn plain, all the lines and separations have disappeared, and there is one unbroken tract of sunny fruitfulness. And so when the life in Christ is low and feeble, His servants may be separated and drawn up in rigid lines of denominations, and churches, and sects; but as they grow the lines disappear. If to the churches of England today there came a sudden accession of knowledge of Christ, and of union with Him, the first thing that would go would be the wretched barriers that separate us from one another. For if we have the life of Christ in any mature measure in ourselves, we shall certainly bare grown up above the fences behind which we began to grow, and shall be able to reach out to all that love the Lord Jesus Christ, and feel with thankfulness that we are one in Him. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.WEB: "This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. |