Alleluia!
Christ has Risen! He has Risen in Deed!
Alleluia!
Christ has Risen! He has Risen in Deed!
Alleluia!
Christ has Risen! He has Risen in Deed!
"We Are Those Friends"
John 15:9–12 9As the Father
has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10If you keep
my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s
commandments and abide in his love. 11These things I have spoken to
you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12[Jesus said:]
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Keeping Jesus'
commandments, Mark 12: 30, 31, shouldn't be hard, there are only two; love God
and love one another. How many of you
will say you love God? What does that
love look like? How would you describe
loving God? I'm sure we could come up with
many answers to these questions. It
isn't that your answers would be right or wrong, rather it would be a matter of
degree. What degree of love from your
heart, soul, mind, and strength do you feel you love God?
If we are truthful we
might answer Sunday for one hour, maybe the one to two hour bible study, and
part of the time we spend during a voters, guild, or board meeting. Some of you might say during prayer, and
devotion. Here's a question, do you ever
tell God you love Him?
With my whole heart I try to love God and try to make
it more often practiced. With my soul I
worship God and try not to do it by memory but with true feeling and realize in
return God gives me joy through that worship.
With my mind I try to dig deeper into scripture to know my God more and
that to have a return of joy as I learn His ways of loving us. And with my strength which I pray God will
continually increase I try to combat my sins that get in the way of me loving
God as much as I am able or as much as I should.
So loving God has many
facets for us to ponder and discover through His love which is also through His
word. One of the ways our God loves us
is through His word. And through God's
word we find out how we are to love one another as He has loved us.
John 15:13–15 13Greater love
has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. 14You
are my friends if you do what I command you. 15No longer do I call
you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I
have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made
known to you.
We don't always love God the way we should. None of us including myself can pat ourselves
on the back and say we do love God as we should. This is unfortunately true because God is not
our lives, He is just a small part of it tucked away in a little box that we
hide whenever we feel He is getting in our way.
So if we have a problem loving God the way we should,
how can we be good at loving our neighbor the way we should? Sure we are helpful at times to one another,
we even pray for those we know not so much for those we don't. What do we do to help each other grow; what
would that love look like; would God's word answer this question? How fast would you turn on one another if one
was to have committed a crime or you caught them in a sin?
How many of us live in the law and forget the
gospel? It is always easy to disperse
law even when the law does not apply. In
our world there is no innocent until proven guilty, rather one is guilty until
we can't prove it, and they're still guilty.
Forgiveness is optional but there must always be a sacrifice for the
sin! Well, as long as it isn't me, me,
me...
You know the story of
Abraham and his son Isaac. Abraham was
told to sacrifice his son by God and Abraham, through faith, was going to do
what God asked. God stopped Abraham
before his knife fell and accounted Abraham's loyalty as faith. Did you ever think that Abraham's faith was
that Isaac was not the right sacrifice and God would provide the right
sacrifice needed?
However you look at this story Isaac would have lived
even if Abraham had followed through because of the promise God had given
Abraham. God's promise was the many
descendants he would have through Isaac.
Abraham through faith and patience waited for God to deliver the right
sacrifice that was caught in a bush a few feet away.
Could we have that much faith so as not to turn on our
neighbor in time of need even when it was due to sin? Could we practice patience and wait for God
to show us the truth of what is needed in all situations so that the right
sacrifice was given?
Jesus asks us to bear fruit that is good fruit. Our fruit comes from the heart to God and to
our neighbor. Our love for one another comes from our heart and is dispersed
with our whole soul. Through love we
rely on God's word to fill our minds with His way of love, and through our God
given strength God becomes our way of life.
Jesus Christ made us His life and through His friendship gave His life
to save ours. Let the gospel then live
through us.
John 15:16–17 16You did not
choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit
and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my
name, he may give it to you. 17These things I command you, so that
you will love one another.
We are able to abide in Christ, that is, we live in
Christ as He lives in us. Christ went to
the cross to show us His great love for the Father, and the Father's great love
for us, and Christ's own love for us.
Christ sacrificed through pain humility and even death to pay the ransom
owed for our sin, and it was because He considers us His friends. And as a friend Christ serves out of love for
each of us.
But the gospel shows even greater love as we are not
just cleansed through our baptism and forgiven from the cross through Christ's
body and blood. We are also living in
the gospel as we have now been given everlasting relationship through eternal
life with our Lord and Savior who loves all His friends and we are those
friends.
Alleluia!
Christ has Risen! He has Risen in Deed!
Alleluia!
Christ has Risen! He has Risen in Deed!
Alleluia!
Christ has Risen! He has Risen in Deed!
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