Focus
Experience silence in the midst of your busy day. Take some time to relax into a time to be with God.
Read
9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Reflect
I have often used the phrase “if you loved me…” although looking back it was never in a good context. Usually, it was a guilt trip to get my husband or my children to do something I wanted them to do, like the dishes or cleaning up the house. With a pouty lip, I would tell them that if they really loved me, they would take care of this chore without complaint. Rarely did this have the desired effect.
Getting our significant other or our children to do things for us isn’t what Jesus was talking about in our scripture today. The love Jesus is speaking of today is that in Greek, Agape, kind of love. That love, that loves without reason and is without compare.
God loves us so much that He desires no one to be lost. God loves us so much that He sent His only Son to die in our stead. Jesus calls us to this same kind of love. He calls us to “abide” in this love. Abide meaning to bear patiently, to endure without yielding, to accept without objection. How do we abide? By keeping His commandments. When we keep these commands, we “abide” in His love.
I can think of no other place that I would like to abide, can you?
Pray
God who calls us to love; today is a day where we recognize that to abide in your love means to keep your commands. Help us today as we bear patiently, as we endure without yielding and accept without objection what you have called us to. To a life with you. The world pulls us and we often fall, forgive us when we choose our own path. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Go with God!
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