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John 15:9-17 - [Jesus said] "As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No 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. You 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. These things I command you, so that you will love one another."
It's interesting to see what Jesus focuses on during this final meal with His disciples a few hours before He died. He knows that this is His last chance to prepare them for the horror of the crucifixion, and that's clearly on His mind, especially in the chapter just before this reading.
But time is short for another reason, too. When Jesus rises from the dead, He will see His disciples again, but He'll have only 40 days before He returns to heaven. Then the Holy Spirit comes, and the explosive birth of the Christian church on Pentecost.
So Jesus' words are now special, because they are some of His last words to the disciples—and to all of us future believers in Jesus. So He picks the most important things to impress on them.
"Abide in My love," He says. "Live in it. Stay in it. Don't go out of it." Jesus loves us dearly, and there's no way He wants to lose even a single one of us—the people He paid such a high price to save on the cross. If we remain with Him, we will share both His love and His joy.
"Love one another," He says—and how? "As I have loved you." Now that's an impossible act to follow, for who could ever love the way Jesus does, dying and rising again so that He can give eternal life to the people He loves so much? But we can do this, if we abide in Jesus' love for us—because then He Himself will be living inside us. He will love other people through us if only we let Him—even the annoying ones, even the odd ones, even the ones who get on our nerves. They too are people He loves enough to die for.
WE PRAY: Dear Jesus, I want to stay close to You. Please live inside me and love Your people through me. Amen.
This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.
Reflection Questions:
1. If you knew you were about to die, what would you want to say to those you love?
2. How does it make you feel, to know Jesus is so urgent about keeping you near Him?
3. Tell about a time God helped you to show love to someone you have trouble getting along with.
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