"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."~John 15:12
Each morning before we begin our work for the day, we gather together to read the Bible and have a short devotional. Normally, we read from the assigned Scripture for that day and discuss it. This week, however, there had not yet been created a monthly reading calender. Instead, a few of the interns signed up for days to share a small devotion. As each of us shared in the mornings this week, a common theme kept occurring as if the Holy Spirit was trying to teach us something. That theme was of love and sacrifice.This has not only been the theme of the week, but also a theme that the Lord has been trying to teach me for the past two months. To love is to sacrifice.
Some of you know the struggles I have been having with my living situation. It has been difficult for me to get along and understand my roommates because of great differences between us. As I have been dealing with this over the weeks and months, I have talked with others about the dilemma that I am in. To my surprise, what has come out of the mouths of those in whom I have confided in have been the small yet demanding words, "Love them." "Love them?!" I reply in great offense. "But how can I love them when they are so unwilling to show love to me?!" Now this is where I am wrong. This is where my understanding of God and His grace and love to the world is so flawed and distorted. Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them" (Luke 6:32). Because I have chosen to accept the call from God to enter into eternal life, because I have accepted the free gift of grace, and because I have accepted the work of the cross, I am called to higher standards. The old is gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). I am a new creation and I have died to sin. But I also have a choice. I can choose to continue to die to myself so that the Holy Spirit can grow stronger in me, or I can quench the Spirit and give in to my sinful nature. As I look back on the situation with my roommates, it is evident which path I have chosen.
Recently, the Lord has convicted me of my sinful heart in this matter. He has gently guided me back to the straight and narrow path that He desires me to take. Through the words of wise people in my life, devotional books, and the Scripture, God has spoken to me about how to love. You see, it is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). I have no power, strength, or courage to love those who do not love me in return. But Christ who is in me does. In a devotional book I have been reading by Andrew Murray it states, "Understand that He who gave the command [to love each other] in such close connection with His teaching about the Vine and the abiding in Him, gave us in that the assurance that we have only to abide in Him to be able to love like Him" (Abide in Christ, p. 147). To abide means to surrender. It means to daily, minute by minute, give yourself over to the control of the Father. It is, as Paul states in Romans, to "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (12:1). It is a sacrifice to abide and therefore to love.
In John 15:13, the next verse after Jesus commands his disciples to love each other, he says, "Greater love have no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Jesus sacrificed his life, the ultimate sacrifice, to show his love to all mankind. This is the kind of love that he has commanded us to show to not only those who love us, but also to those who hate us. This, in my opinion, is the highest calling. With such a high calling as this, it can be daunting to undertake. However, our God is faithful to us. He does not expect us to love one another, to love our enemies, on our own. He has given us Himself. If we choose to abide in Him, to remain in Him, He will love others through us. But we must sacrifice ourselves to His control.
To love is to sacrifice. May we learn that when we abide in the true Vine, we will be able to love as He loved, thus fulfilling His command to love one another. E.
Some of you know the struggles I have been having with my living situation. It has been difficult for me to get along and understand my roommates because of great differences between us. As I have been dealing with this over the weeks and months, I have talked with others about the dilemma that I am in. To my surprise, what has come out of the mouths of those in whom I have confided in have been the small yet demanding words, "Love them." "Love them?!" I reply in great offense. "But how can I love them when they are so unwilling to show love to me?!" Now this is where I am wrong. This is where my understanding of God and His grace and love to the world is so flawed and distorted. Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them" (Luke 6:32). Because I have chosen to accept the call from God to enter into eternal life, because I have accepted the free gift of grace, and because I have accepted the work of the cross, I am called to higher standards. The old is gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). I am a new creation and I have died to sin. But I also have a choice. I can choose to continue to die to myself so that the Holy Spirit can grow stronger in me, or I can quench the Spirit and give in to my sinful nature. As I look back on the situation with my roommates, it is evident which path I have chosen.
Recently, the Lord has convicted me of my sinful heart in this matter. He has gently guided me back to the straight and narrow path that He desires me to take. Through the words of wise people in my life, devotional books, and the Scripture, God has spoken to me about how to love. You see, it is not I who lives, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). I have no power, strength, or courage to love those who do not love me in return. But Christ who is in me does. In a devotional book I have been reading by Andrew Murray it states, "Understand that He who gave the command [to love each other] in such close connection with His teaching about the Vine and the abiding in Him, gave us in that the assurance that we have only to abide in Him to be able to love like Him" (Abide in Christ, p. 147). To abide means to surrender. It means to daily, minute by minute, give yourself over to the control of the Father. It is, as Paul states in Romans, to "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (12:1). It is a sacrifice to abide and therefore to love.
In John 15:13, the next verse after Jesus commands his disciples to love each other, he says, "Greater love have no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Jesus sacrificed his life, the ultimate sacrifice, to show his love to all mankind. This is the kind of love that he has commanded us to show to not only those who love us, but also to those who hate us. This, in my opinion, is the highest calling. With such a high calling as this, it can be daunting to undertake. However, our God is faithful to us. He does not expect us to love one another, to love our enemies, on our own. He has given us Himself. If we choose to abide in Him, to remain in Him, He will love others through us. But we must sacrifice ourselves to His control.
To love is to sacrifice. May we learn that when we abide in the true Vine, we will be able to love as He loved, thus fulfilling His command to love one another. E.
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