How Deep Is Your Love?

How Deep Is Your Love?

Good Morning Friends,

Jesus asked 307 questions in the Bible and 99 questions were asked of him of which he only answered three directly. Instead of being the answer man he is better referred to as the man of questions to teach us. And the teaching comes down to some of his last words as he in a glorified state prepares to return home. The disciples are not looking for it to end but the extent of Christ’s selflessness is staring them in the face with a New Commandment that does not focus on a negative morality but a positive one. How Deep Is Your Love?

Scripture: When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

John 13: 31 – 35 (NRSV)

Message: Today we have a call to action by Christ. It is not a sentimental feeling. It is not a suggestion to love because we have been loved. It is a non-optional command! As a follower of Christ Jesus, we must love! And we get this…we are to love as Christ loved looking us square in the eye with a commitment to take it the distance. Jesus is saying to love each other in the same way he loves us so that others will know that we are disciples of Christ. Sure, there will be times when we are not loving, and we are angry and fearful. But in those very moments we need to dig deeper to understand what prompts those feelings, so we might show forth love to others when they and we need it the most. What Christ calls us to is not a feeling but an action. Love for a Christian is not a second-hand emotion. The cross is the standard by which we must love so others might be saved. We are to show forth love even for our enemies.

And So, we are left with a question that faces us in the mirror. If we are Christians, we are to be in love and we are to show it. We are to trust and obey this commandment that supersedes all the rest. For the key to Christian morality is not one of self-protection but the utmost of self-giving as the dynamic of the love of Christ. The problem is that our world is really into lust, not love. God’s kind of love is all about giving, doing what is best for the other person and Jesus is the best model of that and the very definition of it. It is only because of the love of Jesus that love can flow through us to a needy world. And that is a deep love that remains in the Spirit of Christ after Jesus has gone where we cannot yet go. And so, the world will judge Christianity by the way we treat each other as Christians but also how we treat those who have yet to believe. Pray we respond to the souls of others as children of God. Pray our words are kind and calming as a mother’s comforting words. Pray our touch is as a father’s strong embrace and our countenance is reflective of a friend’s laugh. Pray our love is telling the souls of others that they are not alone in this world for we travel together in the unity of the Spirit of Christ.

Pray we have a love that prompts us to linger a little longer even though we realize that this life is fleeting. Pray we realize that love in the form Christ challenges us to embrace is not just noble and eloquent but is also amazingly original as it is both a verb and a noun that transforms. Pray therefore we seek the best for one another with no thought of what we might receive in return. Pray we have a love that castes out fear in us and those in whom we meet as something that irresistibly alters our nature. Pray we walk in the footsteps of Jesus by loving in the way Jesus loved. Pray we are known for glorifying God because we demonstrate loving actions for each other even though we might feel something less than loving.

Blessings,

John Lawson