No Longer Servants

 

 John 15:12-17

The Great Commandment

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.

Friends, no longer servants, beloved of Jesus, chosen, appointed to bear fruit, commissioned to love one another as he has loved us. Doesn't this short passage give us the opposite of so much going on in our country, in our world, and a boost to live joyfully and lovingly?  The accumulation of things or accolades will not make us happy.  Loving others, being loved by them, will.  Jesus speaks with great tenderness to assure us of his love. What greater motivation do we need to share our love with all?

Bro. Rene

Dear Jesus, thank you for your enormous love for us.  May we not ignore it but accept it, live according to it and share it unreservedly with others. Amen.