By this, all people will know you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
– John 13:35
That is quite a statement. By this, all people will know that you are followers of mine by the way you love each other. And this at the conclusion of a chapter where Jesus loved them by kneeling down and lowering himself and washing their feet, serving them in an astounding picture of humility and love.
John 13:35 challenges the way we relate to other believers.
Which leads me to simply encourage you today to think about your posture to every follower of Jesus around you that you know, followers of Jesus you don’t know, followers of Jesus around the world, including followers of Jesus with whom you have had conflict or challenges in your relationship with them, or maybe followers of Jesus with whom you disagree. Not about who Jesus is or how Jesus saves us, the core things that unite every follower of Jesus. But followers of Jesus with whom you disagree, and maybe even strongly, about things that are really important to you, important to others, important in the world but the Bible doesn’t give a clear direct command to followers of Jesus on so there’s room for disagreement.
And I just want to encourage you with every single follower of Jesus that comes to your mind, consider your posture toward them. How can you love them well? And how can you lay down your life to serve them? How can you pray for them? How can you encourage them? Oh, let me just lead us to pray for John 13:35 to mark our lives.
John 13:35 challenges us to love each other the way Jesus loves us.
God, may it be so. We know this is your desire. We are praying this according to your Word. Help us to love each other in your church as your church, the way you have loved each of us. God, we pray to you as our Father. Help us to love all your sons and daughters well. Help us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ with compassion and forgiveness and patience and kindness and gentleness, bearing with one another in love, believing the best about one another, encouraging one another, spurring one another on towards you, serving each other.
God, we pray for the followers of Jesus we know. Help us today to go out of our way to love them and care for them, serve them and look out for their interests above our own. God, we pray for followers of Jesus who for any number of reasons in our lives or others’ lives where it’s hard to love. Jesus, we praise you for loving us when we were hardest to love. God, we praise you for loving us when we are hard to love. God, we pray you help us to love others like that, especially brothers and sisters in Jesus who are harder to love. Help us to love them all the more by the power of your love in us.
And God, we pray the result of this would be others knowing we are your followers. We pray this would mark our local churches. Love. Like, “Those people in that church love each other so much.” God, we pray for that in ways that would lead people to know you and your love for them. God, we pray for this between churches. Help us to love each other between churches so much that the world’s like, “They’re clearly following Jesus by the way they love each other.” God, may John 13:35 be so.
Prayer for the Yao People
And God, we do, we pray for this around the world. God, for the Yao people in Mozambique and Zambia and Malawi and Tanzania. God, we pray for this people group of 3.7 million Muslims. That they would know you are love, that Jesus, you have laid down your life for their sins. May they know that kind of love through the way they see the church, the church loving each other and loving them. God, we pray for this. Please, please, please help us to live in light of John 13:35. Today, help us to love one another in a way that shows the world the depth of your love. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
