Musings from John 15:12-17

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

John 15:12

I love verses that show us how much God loves us, I'm sure you do to. They are encouraging and it is amazing to think of how much Jesus loves us.

In this verse Jesus is teaching us, or should I say commanding us to love others just as He has loved us. Ouch!!!! I don't know what you think, but this is one of those verses that is hard to live out. But let's remember, Jesus commanded it, so it must be possible in some way. Let's love others the way Jesus loved us. And yes, that includes those who we feel are unloveable.
 
 
Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

John 15:13

Jesus continues to develop the thought on commanding us to love others as He has loved us. Jesus shows us the ultimate way to show this love. Though we may never be called to "lay down our lives" we can still lay down or lay aside our agendas, our expectations, our plans, for our friends. Let us remember that Jesus showed us His great love for us by laying down His life for us.


You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

John 15:14,15

Probably at least once in our lives we have referred to someone as our friend to try and impress someone. When it comes to Jesus, I am not surprised that I want to call Him friend. What amazes me, is that He calls us His friends.

Jesus teaches us in these verses that He wants us to do what He commands. Jesus also revealed to the disciples the things the Father was telling Jesus. Today the Holy Spirit reveals to us what God is saying.

Let's go out today remembering that Jesus call us friends. As we here from the Holy Spirit, let's obey Jesus' commands.
 
 
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give it to you.

John 15:16

Let us think on one truth from this verse; you and I were chosen by Jesus. I can grasp me... wanting to choose Him, I cannot grasp Him wanting to choose me. Yet He did choose us. Ready for another mind blowing thought ? He didn't wait for us to be "worthy" or "good enough" to choose us. He chose us as we were. He also teaches us that He appointed us to go and bear fruit with our lives, and that that fruit would remain. As we abide in Him and our lives bear fruit we will begin to know what is on God's heart and when we ask for it in Jesus' name it will be given.

Although all you may see of yourself is your faults and failures, remember, you were chosen by Jesus!!!
 
 
This I command you, that you love one another.

John 15:17

This is the second time in John 15 that Jesus has commanded to love one another. Jesus had said in John 13:35," By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another". Loving others shows the world Christlikeness. The world has seen people saying they believe certain truths, they have seen people be "religious", but nothing impacts or makes an impression on someone like love. The Apostle Paul said in 1st Corinthians 13 that without love we are nothing.

Let's follow the example and command of Jesus and love each other. And when it gets really hard to do let's ask Jesus for His power to be able to love others because we can't do it in our own strength.
 
Troy