Daily Devotional

It is now 2024, and a new year has dawned and with it, all the hope and promise that a new start typically brings. However, we cannot deny the fact that while great things may lie in store for us in the coming year, there are bound to also be trials, heartache, and maybe even tragedy, and those hard times will test us.

So as we begin this new year let me challenge you with this verse from John, where Jesus is speaking at the last supper, before He would be crucified. Jesus is signifying to His disciples what is about to happen without being obvious. And in doing so He tells them to love one another as He (Christ) has loved them, and by that others will know they are His disciples. So as the world is about to seemingly come crashing down on the disciples (from their perspective) what is the one thing that Jesus wants them to do, what is the important takeaway? To love one another as Christ loved them. That is simple and yet profound. It seems so simple and yet can be so incredibly difficult.

That is my charge for you for 2024, for a new year, to love one another as Christ loved. We are bound to have some difficult times up ahead, the world is getting darker, stranger, more embracing of sin, and calling out those who would dare challenge the darkness. It’s going to get harder for us as Christians, each year as we march toward the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it’s going to get harder, we were promised as much. But we must remember that we are God's light here on earth, we must shine in the darkness, especially when it is hard.

So how do we do that, well, we love one another. Not just fellow Christians, that is relatively easy… well sometimes. But we are called to love everyone. Not just the ones we like, the ones we agree with, the ones who look or think like us. No, we are called to love our enemies, the ones who themselves will hate us, mock us, and spit on us. And we are called not just to love, but to love as Christ loved. That is a pretty high standard of love. But that is what it means to be a Christian, to be a follower of Christ, to love as He loved. So as we begin a new year with its ups and downs, remember to love, especially when it is hard. That is how you proclaim Christ to a dark world in a new year. Happy New Year, may you experience God’s love and blessings in 2024.

"New King James Version (NKJV) Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved."