LOVE AND OBEY
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Opening Prayer
Thank you, Jesus, for your indescribably wondrous gift of love that saved me, holds me fast, and gives me invaluable purpose.
Read JOHN 15:9–17
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Reflect
‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (v. 13).
Recently I read about an actor in a big-budget film who, for reasons of confidentiality, was told very little about the storyline. He even had to act a fight with a villain without knowing who his opponent was. The first time most of the actors saw the entire film was at the premiere. Does your life ever seem like that—as if you’re feeling your way day by day, not knowing the big picture?
If Jesus were a film director, he wouldn’t be like that. He says to his disciples, ‘everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you’ (v. 15). His approach is to share everything, involving them in his project. One of the few people in the Old Testament to get really close to God is Moses, with whom the Lord speaks ‘face to face.’1 And yet, Moses is described as the Lord’s servant. If Moses, who had that closeness of relationship with God, is described as God’s servant, how much closer must our relationship be with Jesus, who calls us his friends? Of course, it doesn’t mean we’ll understand all the details, but the important thing is that Jesus has shared his very self with us, laying down his life. That is ‘everything’ we could need.
This means that the security we have as Jesus’ friends is quite opposite to the insecurity many actors experience. We don’t have to earn our position. Jesus has loved us, chosen and appointed us for a life that is not ephemeral but really matters, full of lasting fruit. Our task is simply to respond to his love by ‘remaining’ in it (v. 9). The primary way we remain in it is by following his command to love one another, as he has loved us (vv. 10, 12).
Apply
Jesus promises that his disciples will bear ‘fruit that will last’ (v. 16). Where in your life do you seek and claim that promise for your own?
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you for choosing me, for offering me salvation, and calling me your friend. Please help me to live my life in ways that matter for eternity.
1 Num 12:6–8.
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