| Good Morning Everyone, Our theme for this month: “You are loved” Our Bible verse for today: “No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” John 15:13-14 (CSB) Our thought for today: “Jesus teaches us to love others sacrificially.” Our Bible verse from yesterday was John 13:34-35, “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” In that passage Jesus was teaching that he wants other people to experience His love as a result of having interacted with you. He was so serious about inspiring us to do that, He repeated it just a little latter in John 15:12, “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.” Then, right on the heals of having said it a second time, He rolls right into His teaching in verses 13-14 about the greatest proof of that love being a willingness to lay down your life for another. In verse 14 He taught that the depth of our relationship with Him will be revealed by how willing we are to do what He just taught in verses 12-13. The great Bible scholar and devotional writer from a previous generation, Oswald Chambers, offered some helpful insight into the application of Jesus’ teaching when he wrote, “The fruitfulness of friendship is described in verse 13: “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” If I am a friend of Jesus Christ, I lay my life down for Him. That does not mean that I go through the big crisis of death; it means that I lay down my life deliberately … I have a day before me, and I am going to lay it out for Jesus Christ; I have my duty to perform, but I am going to lay it out in devotion to Jesus Christ all through.” This is about sacrificial love. It is about a willingness on our part to go the extra mile, to do the extra thing, to make the extra effort – even at sacrificial expense to ourselves – to serve Jesus and to serve others. This laying down of your life is a metaphor for loving and serving sacrificially in the name of and on behalf of Jesus. I love being around Christians who have learned to live like this. Not only do I end up being blessed by them (blessing is simply what they do because of who they are), but also, their example inspires and motivates me to want to be better than I am. I encourage you to make it a point to find people who know how to live, and love, and serve like that, and spend time with them. Then, go and do likewise. God Bless, Pastor Jim |
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