Reading Through John Devotionals – Week 14
See all Devotionals: https://graceforohio.org/category/reading-through-john-devotionals/
Day 92
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
His is the greatest, most magnanimous love. The greatest of all time – the G.O.A.T. love.
Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
No one does it better. Nobody is more extreme in how they love. There is no love more powerful, none more mighty in the way they do it than the one who actually lays down his life for his friends.
The intentional, unmistakable act of setting down one’s very life in the place of another. The volition and purpose with which He has chosen, based on the authority He has been given. The very laws of nature declare His authority over life itself – that He can; that He would set His life in the place of the life of His friends.
This is the most amazing. Most incredible and amazing love.
Replacing another’s life with your very own. The soul, the inner being. Laying it down on purpose – in place of another. In place of one whom Jesus calls friend.
Purposefully setting down His very life breath, His soul, His who-He-is for the purpose of yours and of mine.
He said in John 10:17-18, “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”
It’s a living sacrifice kind of laying down. This is the greatest kind of love. The kind of love Jesus has for us, His friends. The kind of love He calls us to have for each other.
Because Jesus had the authority to lay it down of His own accord. Yes, His is the love that is the Greatest Of All Time.
Day 93
Read John 15:9, Matthew 3:13-17 & Matthew 17:1-5
Have you ever thought about how the Father loves the Son? Matthew, the tax-collector-turned-disciple, thought about it a lot, it seems. He wrote about it two different times in his Gospel. Both times, he recorded the same exact words spoken by the Father.
“This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well-pleased.”
The first time we read it is in Matthew 3, where he describes the moment Jesus is baptized by John. “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water, and a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Right after that, the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the desert to be tempted for 40 days. And if we keep reading Matthew’s gospel account, we find Jesus standing on the truth of His identity in the Father as He fights against the Devil and stands sinless instead of letting pride rule His moment and ruin the Father’s plan.
It’s interesting to note that Matthew recorded the Father’s spoken love for His Son before telling us about Jesus’ victory over temptation. Perhaps as a former tax collector, Matthew realized the power words of affirmation held. Perhaps he himself needed to remember how very clearly the Father had spoken those words and how very seriously Jesus had taken them as He stepped into His ministry to conquer sin and death.
Matthew’s second recording of the Father’s declaration happens on the top of a mountain. Jesus is alone with Peter, James, and John, and Matthew says He is “transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Mt. 17:1-3) The Son in the full glory of God Himself as the Father speaks up declaring,
“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (v.5)
This is how the Father loves the Son. He declares His love as He remains in Him, shows up, and glorifies Himself.
It’s how Jesus loves us. This is the love from which He operates.
It’s the love from which we can operate, too. The love with which we can love. You and I can love each other with the love of the Father, the love of the Son. We can love one another from the foundation of knowing that He is well pleased with us. We can walk, fill Easter eggs for egg drop, or walk across the street and share our story with our elderly neighbor. We can love because we are loved. Because the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves you and me.
Day 94
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.
While His is the greatest love, mine might be the least. Because of what I don’t like to lay down. Because what I like and don’t like, well, it comes into play when I think of loving another the way Jesus loved. He called me to lay down my will in order to love another human.
“Greater love has not one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (Jn. 15:13)
It’s the smell of body odor mixed with cigarette smoke after it has permeated every fiber of the fabric of a sweater on somebody I might hug. It’s the unrecognized scent of poverty mixed with too many years of being too difficult to cope. It’s last night’s drunk mixed with coffee through teeth that haven’t been brushed.
I don’t like it, can’t really handle the smell, in fact. Still, I think these are things Jesus had to push through, had to purposefully and willfully lay down for the love He held for you and for me. Because of what He called us. Because He made us His friends.
The purpose and intention it took is notable, don’t you think? Because nobody likes those smells.
But love lays down the nose snub and hopes for nose blindness even as it lays down its life for the friends who stink.
Love lays down the desire for comfort and the need for convenience. It sets aside the want for what is easy to be around. Love lays down its very life for its friend.
Day 95
Read John 15:11
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
What Jesus declared – the very truth of it – He knew would allow His disciples to live in the joy that He came to bring them. The joy He came to give us. And that joy is life. Complete and full. Satisfied, content, to the full joy that knows no end, no limit, no boundary.
Because Jesus knew the connection to Him – abiding in Him – was the connection to eternal and complete life as it was designed to be lived. And He was declaring right there before the twelve the truth about how to live it. Where to find it. How to thrive in it. How to live.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy be complete.” (John 15:11)
I picture a vine close by. Maybe Jesus looked around and saw it growing as they made their way to the garden that night, their bellies full, their minds anxious from the words they’d just heard
“I tell you the, one of you is going to betray me.” (Jn. 13:21)
“Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will floor later.” (Jn. 13:36)
“I will be with you only a little longer.” (Jn. 13:33)
“Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” (Jn. 13:38)
Maybe Jesus looked at that vine and pointed it out speaking life and joy straight into each of their souls with the truth about real and true life. The Father’s love is their life. His love is the vine. They are the branches. Like that vine right there.
If those little branches get separated from that vine, they have no life. But you, dear ones, you are the branches connected to that life-giving vine, so don’t trouble yourselves with where to find water. For My Father, the vine, will give you life. Just remain in me. Just stay here in my love. I love you as the Father loves me. Endlessly. And I’m letting you know. I’m declaring it here so you can live with the complete joy of just knowing, just staying. Absolute joy. Complete contentment and satisfaction in knowing and believing what I’ve said.
For what the Father reveals – His Word – brings joy to all. And what I reveal, what I declare – my words – give joy unending. So remain in me.
And live.
Day 96
13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
The fruit that comes from God’s Spirit is the only kind of fruit that lasts. It’s love that chooses, love that prefers, love that commits forever. It chooses to cherish, commits to act, and wills to serve even when doing so is inconvenient.
Jesus said, “I chose you and appointed you that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: love each other.” (Jn. 15:16-17)
To follow Jesus’ command is to love with the Spirit He gives because He has hand-picked His children to do the work of cherishing each other. And this is what it means to remain in Him. This Him in me and me in Him, a covenant thing that relies on Him to define our wants, form our requests, and build our love.
The Father loves the Son. The Son loves His followers. His followers follow. And this is how we remain in Him. This is how we function, how we coincide, and remain in Him. We let Him live, we let Him love through our very everything we are. We surrender our deepest yearning, let Him form what we want, and trust Him to provide it. Then we let Him love us to the point that we love others like He loves us. We, His beloved, rest, even as we love the way He appointed us to love, even as we remain in the relationship He pulled us into with Himself. And we operate from the foundation of beloved.
It’s the only kind of fruit that means anything. The only kind of fruit that will last.
Day 97
Read John 15:17
17 This is my command: Love each other.
I heard her phone ring as I sorted through the hangers at the thrift store four rows away. I heard her answer, and my thoughts ran rampant as her words flowed freely. Just a few seconds in, and already I’d ascertained that she should take her conversation outside. I spent the next twenty minutes silently judging this stranger for having a private conversation in a public setting and forcing my fellow shoppers and me into captivity as we had to listen to family drama that we honestly should not have had to hear. By the time I walked out of the store, I had basically written a dissertation in my mind on appropriate versus inappropriate conversations to have in public.
Then my feet hit the parking lot and as plain as the sunlight hit my eyes, I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit. He reminded me of today’s verse, John 15:17. “This is my command: Love each other.” And suddenly I wondered what might have happened if I’d spent those last 15 minutes praying for her out of the love Jesus has given me to love others with rather than judging her in the pride I so often cling to.
Because sometimes love looks like action. But sometimes from the outside, it doesn’t look like anything at all. And, although that stranger may have had no idea what my thoughts were toward her that day, God knows every intention and thought of my heart. So what if I’d taken the love He gives me from the relationship I have with Him and actually used it to somehow love that stranger instead of pridefully judging her?
What if loving each other means letting ourselves be uncomfortable for the sake of another’s good? Even if it means we have to hear things we don’t want to hear.
If we are remaining in His love, how are we letting Him love others through us, whether outwardly or in the quiet of our own hearts? Ask God to help you to fill you with His love for others.
Day 98
Read John 15, as you are reading, ask Jesus to highlight some of the phrases in the chapter for you.
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
The World Hates the Disciples
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’[c]
The Work of the Holy Spirit
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
What were some of the phrases that jumped out at you? How can you apply them today?
Days 92-98 Provided by Grace Church
See all Devotionals: https://graceforohio.org/category/reading-through-john-devotionals/