John 15:9-15 - “I have loved you even as the
Father has loved me. Live within my love. When you obey me you are
living in my love, just as I obey my Father and live in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes,
your cup of joy will overflow! I demand that you love each
other as much as I love you. And here is how to measure
it—the greatest love is shown when a person lays down his life for his friends; and you are my friends if you obey me. I no longer call you slaves,
for a master doesn’t confide in his slaves; now you are my friends, proved by
the fact that I have told you everything the Father told me.
Jesus spends His last few hours on Earth
making sure the disciples understand just why He is about to show the greatest
kind of love there is. This simple talk
that starts by telling them to stay connected to God by believing in Him…ends
with the strong command to not let the model of love He is about to show them
be the last gesture of pure love that anyone ever sees. Obedience to God will
not always be an easy road…but it will overflow our heart with joy if we truly follow
His simple command to love each other with a complete love that would lay down
the earthly life we know to give God’s love to others.
I admit that it is one of the hardest
commands to follow….if we take it literally for all Christians. It is easy to love a child…we feel that kind
of love for family … but we tend to pick and choose our friends after that
point. We show love to who we want to…justifying
passing up this or that opportunity to love a homeless… brushing off the casual
acquaintances need for something greater than we think we have to give extra.
Jesus made it clear in this speech that we
are called to love all people. We are to
strive to make all of them our friends so that he can give them the gift of
salvation. My problem is that I use the
fact that God gives me free will to make it more about choosing who to love. This
morning God is telling me clearly that I must stop choosing who to love… all
people includes a wide range of unlovables that may never experience God’s love
if I choose to walk away from an opportunity to show God’s love to them.
Father…thank you for the reminder to love
all people…and thank you for defining for me the definition of the greatest
love that Jesus showed to me. Forgive me
for the times that I have forgotten the real meaning of love and chosen when
and who I love. Help me to expand my
heart to the size that Jesus had …so that more people can see God’s love. Amen.
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