Good morning friends. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. John 15:10 CEB And what are Jesus commandments? This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. (John 15:12-14 CEB). Jesus love was without judgment, without conditions, and without divisions. Unfortunately it seems as if in our world today, this activity of love is reduced to some commodity. One of the problems with reducing love to a commodity is that it becomes cheap and non-nutritional with a relatively short shelf-life. At other times it becomes like those foods that again have almost no nutritional value and yet have a shelf life that never expires, the cakes and snacks that will survive maybe even a nuclear holocaust. It also has the potential to be so expensive and unattainable because it is kept out of peoples reach creating an invisible market in which supply falls far short of demand. Real love though, the type Jesus tells us about is based on something much deeper. it is based on living into the life God created us to live into. Because of this we only need look at the commandments given to Moses on the tablets, ten that relate not only to our interaction with God (the first four) but also with other life in which we encounter almost daily (the last six). This is much different than most of us want to understand because it removes the idea of individualism from the equation. To keep the commandments of Jesus one needs to do two things, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” (Mt. 22:37-40 CEB). The evangelist Luke reminds us of the same thing in Chapter 10 of his Gospel. Not sure what this love really looks like, turn to Pauls first letter to the church in Corinth, chapter 13, Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:4-7 CEB) In other words, love truly means letting go of self in order for others to experience the Kingdom of Heaven right here and now. Prayer- God, you gave us the commandments and yet we still fail. Jesus broke them down into two simple ones. Open our eyes to your love so that we may share it in ways that help others come to new life in you. Amen.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:37:14 +0000