Christian Living

The New Command

by Terry Barlow
06/05/14
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Jesus our Commander-in-Chief has issued a new KIND of command, a unique kind of military order, an unprecedented type of kingly decree, because He commands a new KIND of army, He reigns over a new KIND of kingdom. With all this emphasis on "kind" it's no wonder that it would be a kingdom of "kindness." The decree, the order hence is not to destroy or kill, or capture, or plunder, or wound. The order instead is to build up and bind up, and to give life, or, in a word, to love in the agape sense of love, the disposition of one willing the best for another.  It is described this way in John 15 v.13: "Greater love has no one than this, that someone would lay down one's life for friends."   Jesus is the one who took the word "agape" off the shelf of ignorance and oblivion, dusted it off and implemented it to change the world. Jesus commands us to love in a way that was for the most part unheard of in human history until he personally introduced it to his disciples. The Hippies used to declare: "Make love, not war!" Their version of love, though, was a physical one mingled with lust. It was not the fruit of holiness like the agape love of Jesus, it was largely hedonistic and so it had no power to stop or supplant war like agape has. In the film "Mutiny on the Bounty" Fletcher Christian goes ashore at Captain Bligh's order on a futile errand to attempt to make peace and bring "love" without the means or blessing of the Prince of Peace. This is the Prince who, when He returns, will cause the lion to lay down with the lamb and the swords to be battered into ploughshares.