Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The Love of a Friend, Part 2

Scripture: John 15:12-13
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Insights:  Think for a moment about the context of these two verses.  In these verses Jesus has just stated that a friend lays down his life for his friends.  It is through this sacrificial offering that true love is proven.  During the preceding eleven verses Jesus has been telling about the Vine and branches.  Now think for a moment about the agricultural truth of planting, growing, and harvesting.  The seed that is planted “dies” in the ground and from its death new life is born.  In other words, the Vine has life after a seed dies.  Now think about who is the true Vine and think about what night it is in His life.  Jesus has just celebrated the Passover meal with His disciples.  He is now teaching them the last truths He wants them to know.  In chapter seventeen He will pray the High Priestly Prayer over His disciples and us.  They will then go to the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus will be betrayed by Judas.  He will go through false trials and finally taken to Pilate and Herod.  After His scourging and beatings, He will be taken to Golgotha where He will be hung on a cross and die for the sins of the world.  In other words, Jesus is in the process of proving the very illustration of the Vine to His disciples in real life.  He is going to prove He is the true friend to us all.  And just as Jesus lived this command perfectly, it is also Him who empowers us to love others as well.  Think again to the first eleven verses of this fifteenth chapter.  Over and over again Jesus tells the branches to abide or remain in the Vine.  The reason for this abiding is because in the abiding one is connected to the Vine.  The life blood of nutrients flows from the Vine to the branches.  If we have witnessed Jesus’ perfection in love and we are connected to Him by His saving grace, then we are able to live a life of love because He enables us to do so.  What we must do is continually submit ourselves to Him and ask Him to let His love flow out of us toward others.  As He gives us His love we are then able to love others in this same sacrificial manner in which He loved us.  Beloved, love one another!

Questions:
  1. Are you abiding in Jesus so that He can work in your life so that you can love?
  2. Are you proving that abiding relationship by loving sacrificially? 
Prayer: Lord, thank You that You never abandon me.  You are always there guiding my life and strengthening me.  In Your work I am able to love.  Increase my love Lord so that You are glorified.  Amen.

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