Scripture: John 15:9-17; 1 John 3:16-24
Our lead passage for today is from a section of John’
Gospel, chapters 14-17, commonly known as Christ’s Farewell Discourse. This portion of John’s gospel provides a
detailed discussion of the final teachings that Jesus offered before leaving
for the Mount of Olives and his subsequent arrest. These 4 chapters provide us with insight into
all that Jesus wanted believers to understand about His ministry among us.
And the verses for today describe the depth and
breadth of the love that He had for all of humanity, and especially for those
who would followed His example. And the
sum total of all that He taught would culminate in the sacrifice that He was
about to endure at Calvary.
But the love that our Lord would show to us is the
same love that His Father had shown to Him throughout His life here. In John 7:16-17,
Jesus tells us that He taught nothing that hadn’t come from His Father first,
including the love that He blessed His followers with.
Read John 15:9-17
The Lord assures us that
Divine love is granted through our obedience to all that He has taught us, and
in all that has been lived through us. And
why not? God never gives us the most
difficult tasks at the very beginning of our relationship with Him. They begin as basic opportunities to show Him
our love and trust, and then gradually grow as our faith gains greater ground
within our Lord. And as we follow each
of the tasks that come from God, we begin to show more and more of our Godly
love to those we are serving.
It began with the Father’s
love for His Son, and as Jesus served and taught to the greater of our needs,
He was showing His love to each and every one of us. And in return, our obedient service shows
love to both those who we serve, as well as to our Lord who filled us with that
love to begin with!
And as Godly love grows
within us, the joy of God also begins to grow within both the Lord and those
who learn, live and obey the ways of Jesus.
The one thing that we have to remember about “joy” though, is that in
the context of faith, the word is not necessarily synonymous with “happiness”. Happiness is our reaction to worldly
satisfaction and appreciation.
Joy, on the other hand, is
God’s blessing when our life follows and fits that which we have learned and
obeyed as we walk hand in hand with our Lord Jesus. The phrase “the Joy of the Lord” was never
meant to imply that life no longer has a single care or pain, but simply that
we are living and loving others in the way that Jesus lived and loved us.
And we never have to figure
out how love should be offered all on our own!
We have the example of Jesus that is always before us, and if we follow
Him, His grace and mercy will become our guide.
Remember the encounter that
Jesus had with the woman caught in adultery?
What was Jesus’ judgment of her, when her accusers left without stoning
her? There was no condemnation, only
grace and mercy, as well as the command to “Go and sin no more.” This was love being shown to the one who had
been intentionally trapped in order that Jesus Himself could be confronted and
accused of heresy. (John 8:2-11)
Throughout the gospels, we
see Jesus reaching out to gentiles and sinners with a healing and kindness that
the Jews of His day never would offer and never could understood. This was God’s love in action. Jesus washed the feet of His disciples in the
image of their servant. And in John3:16-17, “For God so loved the world …” – and I call on you to
finish this proclamation of what God’s love is all about in your own life!
In our passage for today, the
Lord says that He no longer calls us “servants”, even though we serve others as
He has served us. The truth is that He
now sees us as “friends” who have chosen to follow Him in love, and not through
coercion.
How well do we emulate the
love of Jesus? Or are we better known
for loving others in the easier way of Earth?
Read 1 John 3:16-24
In
John’s 1st epistle, he offers us an example of how to recognize love
at work in a believer’s life. And
basically, it is about using the resources that God has blessed us with to help
others through a difficult time of need.
Why do you think that the Lord provides some with more resources than
others? I believe that God allows some to have more, and others less, so that
we can share God’s blessings for the good of those who are in need. We aren’t called to benefit from our own goodness and welfare– it is strictly to allow us to be generous and loving!
In Leviticus27:30-33, the Lord tells Israel that the proper offering is a tenth of all
that God has given to you, without question or hesitation. But this was never meant to be a maximum, but
rather a standard. John writes that our
generosity is indicative of the amount of love that we have within our
heart! And he even goes so far as to
tell us that if we don’t reach out in faith, that it's because we have forfeited the love of
God! It has nothing to do with what we
proclaim, but rather in what we do through the love that is within us!
Godly
love can never be attained or developed through our personal efforts and
abilities. Romans 5:5 reminds us
that “… God’s love has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” The true gift of love that lives within us
has come directly from God, and is ours to share with those who are in need of
His love.
There is a hymn that we sang a couple weeks ago – “Love Came Down at Christmas”. The final
verse reads:
“Love shall be
our token;
Love
be yours and love be mine,
Love to God
and all men,
Love
for plea and gift and sign.”
The
love of God that we offer to others is a statement of faith; the love of God is
universally given to all people, but it is up to us as to how we use it. Will we use it selfishly? Or generously? As a gift of God that is intended for
others? As a sign of God’s preeminence
in our lives, or will we use it to build ourselves up?
How
will each of us let the love of Christmas change us and grow within our heart
during this season of Godly love? May it
always be in grand and glorious ways!
