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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

The Devotional - USA08



The Devotional

Comment: Yesterday I spoke of a friend and did not mention his name, well his name is John. We have known each other for forty years, the wonderful thing about our relationship is that we have not been close through the years. Not that we have purposely avoided each other, it is just that life has taken us down different paths. John is a “biker” and I like four wheels under me, yet it is not the bike or the car that separates daily contact and I suppose that whatever does, does not matter. I know that if there were a need, he would be there for me as I would for him, and truly; this is the sufficiency of any friendship. Yet in this there is another Friend and it is He who makes our friendship what it is and to Him be the Glory.

Challenge: Continuing now in John 15 and looking at verses 9-14 we can learn that friendship with God and the children of God is founded on perfect love and expressed in pure joy. This experience is holy, or separated from the world, or better said; the world cannot duplicate this love and joy. The people of the world can only watch and they do watch the children of God, intently!

John 15:9-14 – Jesus speaking “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you, abide in my love. 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. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you.

Someone might be thinking “COMMANDMENT – why would I want to be commanded to love God or for that matter another person other than my wife and immediate family?” “I ought to be able to choose who I love, some people are not worthy of my love”. This fortunately is not the love that Jesus is speaking of, He does not command us to love as the world loves, notice that this is brought to light with John’s first epistle. 1 John 2:15 – Do not love the world or the things of the world. If any man loves the world the love of God is not in him.

So the LORD Jesus commands His children to look to Him and the Father and see how love from God differs from the love of the world. Then practice this love toward each other that the world can observe what the Joy of the LORD truly is. The love of God differs in volume and character from the love of the world. The love of the world is measurable, (step on my toes and I will step on yours) or, (fool me once and my true character will reach out and nail you to the wall). God’s love in volume is never maxed out and the character of God’s love is – all forgiving!

The scripture explaining His love is very familiar to everyone, even the world observes and knows these words by heart. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” John 3:16. The words are rejected because the love that God offers to the world is not the love that the world and the people of the world understand. For example it is often heard. “Why would God have His Son Jesus purposely crucified (sacrificed)? Is there really love in this?”

The love of the world and its people is crippled with SIN thus the love produced by the world is filtered through or with every conceivable thought known to man. For example; lust, greed, hate, coveting, anger and a host of other sins that cause the love of the world to be fragmented or in partial, even bias; or as God explains unholy or impure. The command of Jesus Christ in our passage this morning is simply to lay aside every sin that entangles us and receive the His Word which is always able to deliver us in victory in Christ. 

Now we do not have the time to go into all of this in detail, the responsibility on everyone’s part is to search out the scriptures and see if these things spoken of this morning are true or false. The love of God is called “agape” In the Koine Greek language, it means pure, free of entanglement. God can love us knowing that His Son died for our sin. Thus we are commanded to love God and the people of God, even as God loves us. In Him (Jesus) who is the Lamb of God, John 1:29 we have newness of life.

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