Greater Love Has No One Than This

“Greater love has no one than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:14

    As we always look to our Lord as the ultimate example of how we must live our lives, we hear Him say in John 14:31, “The world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.”  Jesus showed His love for the Father by keeping His commands. Are we to be any different? Jesus says in John 15:10, “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love.” And continuing in verse 17, “This is my command: Love one another.”

    One might ask, “To what extent should we reasonably go to fulfill this command, and remain in Jesus’ love?”  For our answer, we can again look to our prime example, Jesus, remembering that in John 15:20 he says, “No servant is greater than his master.”

    Here we offer some examples of what our Lord found to be reasonable service to keep God’s commands and thereby remain in His love:

1.     It seemed reasonable for Jesus to give up the glory which He had even before the world began (John 17:5) and come down to be born, a peasant, in a lowly manger.

2.     It was only reasonable that Jesus reject Satan’s offer of the entire world (Matthew 4:9) and go forth to face that which He knew to be His future suffering.

3.     It did not seem too much to ask that Jesus should take upon Himself our infirmities and carry our sorrows, or that He should be pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. Neither was it unreasonable for Him to take all our punishment upon Himself which would bring us peace…nor even that we should be healed by the wounds He suffered.


4.     It wasn’t beyond reason that the sinless Jesus would spend the final six hours of life on earth enduring the most humiliating and excruciating death ever devised by man, so that the world would see that He loved the Father by keeping His commands.

    Considering just these few examples of our Lord’s service, what is our reasonable service? The Apostle Paul offers us his answer to this question in Rom. 12:1: “I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

    “Love each other.”  With this command in our mind and our eyes firmly fixed upon the ultimate example, our Lord Jesus Christ, may each of us once again commit to laying down our lives for our Lord by giving to the brethren and thereby remain in His love.
                                      

B. Blake  ©CDMI