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This is Nugget #12, submitted by yours truly...Tina. Please pray that God will give inspiration and revelation to all contributors, using them to His glory and for the edifying of every reader.
Nugget #12: Background Passage: John 15:12-15, Romans 5:6-9 Focal Passage: Jo 15:13, Rom 5:6,8
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"Oh, how He loves you and me!
Oh, how He loves you and me!
He gave His life, what more could He give?
Oh, how He loves you! Oh, how He loves me!
Oh, how He loves you and me!"
Beautiful song, words we hear almost daily. Jesus loves me. Just leaving the Resurrection (or Easter) season, many of us heard these words over and over again. The kids sang about it. Pastors preached it. Sunday School lessons discussed it. But do we really understand the magnitude of this statement?
As I prayed this morning, I thanked God for showing His love to me and for considering one such as myself a friend, for His Word declares that greater love no man has than that he'll die for his friend. I'm sure many of us have prayed that same prayer. But this was God's response: I am not a man.
We, being men(and women), of course think and reason as men. Our minds were designed to do so. Everything is converted to "man measures." However, we must be careful when we consider God in this manner. Often, we, in our limited thinking, try to take God and condense Him to our level. But remember, God tells us that, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways........for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (see Isaiah 55:7-9) As the commercials and the broadway song put it, "Anything you can do, I can do better!" So just what was Jesus getting at in John 15?
If we read verse 13 alone, or with the verses that follow, we'll close our Bibles and say, "Hey! Jesus didn't just love me, He considered me friend and was willing to die for ME, His buddy!" That's great. Woo-hoo. Hit a cartwheel. Really you should. What a joy to know that because you were obedient to the Word and Will of God, Jesus considers you friend. But when you're done, open that great Word up again and start from verse 12. Jesus is giving us a command: love one another in the same way that I loved you. Well, Jesus, how do we do that? How did you love? Jesus's response is this: I died to prove my love, and that's what you should do. Only I died for my enemies. There is no greater way for YOU to show the extent of YOUR love than to lay down your life for your friend. Stop, and read that again. Greater love hath no MAN than this, that a MAN lay down (not just physical death, but to sacrifice, to set aside, to deprive yourself, to serve, to humble yourself, to consider another before yourself, to commit your life to) his life for his friends. Getting the picture? That's the best sacrifice that I can give. God has given us the perfect example in that "for God so loved the world that He gave." We, too, when we love should give. And what better gift than your life for someone you know, love, and trust? But Jesus went beyond that, saying, "OK, for those of you who are NOT my friends, don't worry, because I died for you, too. It had nothing to do with our friendship, but that someday you, too, might experience eternal life with me." Where we reach our limit, God takes it a step higher. For man, there is no better gift, but not for God. Remember, "Anything we can do....."
Romans 5 ties it all together. This is for those of you who feel condemned, who feel that Jesus could never call you friend. Paul says here that you won't hardly find someone willing to die for a righteous man. He then says someone MIGHT be willing to die for a good man. Everyone who is considered good is NOT righteous, but that's another topic. Remember, we're talking about men here. If dying for a friend is our greatest expression of love, and most of us aren't even willing to do that, then you KNOW you won't find too many people willing to die for a righteous or a good man. BUT (I love when God shows His "but" because He's about to turn things around) God commends (shows, proves, teaches, presents) His love to us in that WHILE WE WERE YET SINNERS, Jesus died for us! Anybody else getting excited? We weren't even his friends yet! We were sinners, ungodly, children of darkness, and we know that light has no part with darkness(2 Cor 6:14, Eph 5:8). He sent the flood to destroy the world of the ungodly before (2 Pet 2:5-6), so what made us special? Sodom and Gomorrha was a further example to the ungodly. Jesus says in John 15 that we were His friends if we did what He told us to do. When He died, were you doing what He told you to do? No! Your mother's mother's mother's mother's mother wasn't even born yet, and your other ancestors were somewhere cutting up, I'm sure! And when you WERE born, you STILL acted a fool! But that's OK. Although he died for His friends, it wasn't BECAUSE they were his friends that He died; it was the enemies of God that needed saving. Then what was it? As I heard the great Bishop Clifford Frazier put it, He loved me because love is what He does. Plain and simple. And because He loved, He gave. Now THAT is something worth shouting about!
There are those of you who say that you'll never be saved. You say Jesus could never love me. You look at yourself and your history and you think that you're so unworthy. And you know what? You are unworthy. But guess what? We all are. Isaiah 64:6 says this: But we are ALL as an unclean thing, and ALL our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (of a woman's menstruation), and we ALL do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. What did we do to deserve death? Plenty. But what did we do to DESERVE eternal life? Not a thing. We don't deserve it. But because God loved, He gave Jesus, so that whoever would believe and receive would have eternal life. THIS is eternal life: that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent (John 17:3). Through the Spirit, we wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love (Gal 5:5-6) . So stop looking at yourself, for it has nothing to do with you. Salvation is a gift of love, and God loves not because of what we do, but because love is what He does. The wages of sin is death, but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus (Romans 6:23). Accept it. |
