Do you like receiving gifts—especially when they are valuable and useful to you? I remember a time when, as a teenager, I dreamed of having a new pair of jeans like all my peers wore. I went from store to store looking at different styles and dreaming that someday I would own a pair. But jeans like those were very expensive, and I understood that I would never be able to buy a pair for myself.
While spending my school vacation with my grandmother in the countryside, I received a package from my mother. It seemed strange to me that Mom had decided to remember us in this way. The package contained various foods and a bag with a new pair of jeans. I could not believe my eyes. As if spellbound, I opened the bag and tried on what was inside. They had been made in my size. For a while, joy left me speechless. Then my cousin and I began jumping around the house and shouting, ‘What a delicious package! What a wonderful package!’ Grandma sat quietly nearby, rejoicing in our happiness.
I put on my new pants and did not want to take them off. Whenever I left the house wearing them, it seemed to me that the whole world was looking at my new clothes, but no one was happier about them than I was.
Time passed, and I do not know where those jeans are now. The pairs I owned later never brought my heart the same joy.
When I receive something very valuable and necessary as a gift, my heart rejoices in the realization that I now possess something that will bring me great joy.
Jesus knows the desire of my heart and has prepared a gift for me in an unusual package. Everything we acquire provides us with temporary comforts, but material things cannot satisfy a heart that longs for love and for relationships of love and friendship. Knowing this, Jesus gave us Heaven’s most beautiful gift in the form of a new commandment to love one another. He gave this command three times, and each time He presented it in new packaging, making it clear that God’s special blessings come wrapped in trials and that whoever receives them will have God’s highest approval.
When Jesus commanded us to love one another, He looked forward to the joy that our love would bring within these relationships. By faith, He was delighted by the genuine joy His disciples would experience when they received one another as gifts.
I did not understand the joy found in loving a friend until the Lord gave me that friend and gave me to him. When I realized what this gift was, how wonderful it was, and how my friend could rejoice in me and bring joy to my heart at all times, I was filled with extraordinary delight. The joy that comes from such an understanding is so great and so intangible that you do not know how, or even where to begin, to thank God for such a miracle. Then another friend appeared, and another, and still another—and all of this brings incredible joy to the heart.
A friend after my own heart is a gift from the Lord. In this world, it is difficult to find people who suit you in this way. But the School of Agape Love can nurture gifts like these and then bring joy to your heart through them.
It is natural to desire to tell everyone about the beauty of God’s commandment, its importance, and how wonderful it is to love a friend who loves you.
When I receive something like this from Jesus, my heart begins to explore the essence of the gift. How delightful it is! How capable it is of bringing joy to my heart at all times! How it makes me want to thank God continually for such miracles!
I do not understand why God’s children look elsewhere for all kinds of problems while deliberately avoiding what lies plainly before them and brings happiness.
The message to Laodicea also includes the acquisition of love, and it explains to me in greater detail how important it is to possess gold tried in the fire. In the last days, love for one another will become one of the criteria by which the Lord places His seal.
God’s seal is the settling of the mind in the truth. If love for one another is absent from that mind, then what is the Lord supposed to seal—my lawlessness?
Choosing a friend for a relationship of love is very simple. We begin talking about this subject and come to a mutual agreement to love one another. Then we begin developing our relationship.
If no one has taught me what love is or how it works, I may invent various things that reveal certain facets of love to me. But when I have been taught by God and understand how agape works, all my relationships develop more successfully.
The unusual packaging around the gift of love consists of all kinds of trials that gradually reveal to us, step by step, all the beauty and power of Heaven’s agape.
Set out on this path, and you will see for yourself that receiving a friend for all Eternity as a gift is truly royal generosity. Nothing and no one will bring such joy to the heart as a friend from the Lord.
Earthly possessions can very quickly turn into a pile of trash, disappointing us with their short life. Everything in this world is perishable. But a friend and that friend’s love will always remain valuable.
It should be noted, however, that only mutual love brings special joy. If my friend loves me and I do not respond in the same way, it will be difficult for us to bring joy to each other’s hearts. And if I love my friend while he remains indifferent, my love will be one-sided and incomplete, even though my own heart will still rejoice.
Friends, I ask you to fill your pockets with God’s gifts. Sow love everywhere you can. Taste, and you will see that the Lord is good.
When I prepare something desirable and useful as a gift for a friend, I rejoice even before the moment when the gift is presented. I may even tell my friend in advance what I am going to give so that he can rejoice. But I cannot force him to love my valuable gifts. My friend must decide that for himself.
The commandment to love one another is very important in God’s eyes, and He is waiting for those who will keep it so that He may give His true assessment.
A living friend is a source of many of God’s blessings. That friend is alive in every respect. Friendship with the world and love for the things in the world are not part of God’s plan. But God’s children have a special status and unlimited potential to bring joy through their very presence to those with whom they have decided to love one another.
To love one another is an unending celebration. It is the abundance of God’s continual blessings for all of life and for all Eternity. It is the Spirit of Christ in my heart. It is constant gratitude to God for such a beautiful gift.
But you must taste it for yourself and, from within your own heart, evaluate it through your own discoveries.
The packaging of blessings may hide my true motives from the eyes of others, yet at the same time reveal the value of my friend’s soul—a value that unfolds as I explore it step by step and brings me joy at all times.
Bible Verses for Reflection
John 13:34–35; 15:12–13, 17–19; Isaiah 53:11; Proverbs 17:8, 17; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 4:7–13; Romans 12:10; 1 Thessalonians 4:9; Jeremiah 29:11; 1 Corinthians 13:1–3.