Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

In this month's Live to Love blog, we look at God's Vineyard. You'll learn about the vinedresser (God), the vine (Jesus), the branches (people), the fruit (love of God), and the burn pile (hell). God loves the fruit of His love, so He made the world (the vineyard) for the purpose of enjoying the fruit and glorifying Himself in His Son, Jesus Christ.

John 15:14 You are My friends if you do what I command you.
Yesterday we considered Jesus’ incredible words recorded in John 15:13. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Verse 14 reveals who it is that Jesus lays down His life for. He does not lay down His life for everyone. He lays down His life for His friends. And who are His friends? His friends are obvious. They are those who do what He commands them to do. And there would have been no question in the disciples’ minds as to what He had commanded them to do. He had repeated it twice to them in John 13:34 and 15:12. "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” In my paraphrase, “My friends are those who live their lives for one purpose: to love with Me those the Father has given Me and therefore bear fruit for the glory and joy of My Father.” To do that, we must lay down living for ourselves, adopt Jesus’ purpose as our own, and live through Him.” Are you a friend of Jesus for whom He laid down His life? I sure hope so!

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
After commanding His disciples to love each other as He had loved them, He explained how He had loved them. His entire life from His first breath in this world, was to surrender His life, to lay down His life, to love those His Father commanded Him to love. What did He lay down? He laid down His life with the comforts of heaven and earth. He surrendered His reputation, honor, rights, everything this world had to offer Him. He did not defend, promote, protect, or assert Himself. Everything was laid down that He had a right to hold onto for the sake of one thing: to express the love of the Father for His glory for those the Father wanted Him to love. As He had only minutes before said, “So that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” What had the Father commanded Him? For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father” (Jo. 10:17-18). The Father loves His Son so commanded Him to lay down His life of His own initiative. If He laid down His life for us out of obedience to His Father, shall we not also be loved by our Father and commanded to lay down our lives for those He loves? This is the great love that lives inside of us—the supernatural, self-sacrificial, love of God for His friends.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 15:12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
Today’s verse, confirms all that Jesus had said to His disciples. He loved them like the Father has loved Him. To insure that they and all disciples yet to be born may understand that they have been called to a new purpose by the love of God, Jesus repeated the new commandment. It is our highest good to know that this is the love of God, namely, to be commanded to love with Him and then empowered to bear fruit by His life in them. This command, repeated, received, and obeyed is the life, light, and purpose for which church was brought forth out of the Son of Man and given to Him as His bride—to love Jesus by loving each other through the power of intimate union with His life. We will see all of this expressed in Jesus’ prayer in John 17. The love of Jesus is the fruit of the vine which comes from the life of Jesus, and this love is the light of the world for the glory and joy of not only the Father and the Son, but also all who are His. So today, I love you with the love of Jesus, and in His name, command you to live for this one, all-encompassing, life-transforming, joy-producing purpose—to love today with Jesus. We love because He first loved us and commanded us to love like He has loved us. Tomorrow we learn more about how He has loved us and what loving others looks like.

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com

John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Here the disciples receive the reason for all that Jesus had said and done that evening, recorded in John 13:4 to now. The glory of God is His love revealed in His Son. And how is that love most glorified and revealed? That the love the Father has for His Son and the Son has for the Father is given so freely and so generously to their offspring that they experience the same fullness of joy that the Godhead enjoys together. What word best describes such revealed love and purpose? The word “Glory” comes to mind. Do we realize the glorious, generous, life-changing, joy-producing love of God revealed in the new commandment given to Jesus by the Father and then lovingly given to the disciples and thus to us, “Love one another as I have loved you.”? Jesus said He gave us the commandment so we might experience His joy. When we see His joy in our obedience, our joy will become full. That is the fruit the vine exists for and the fruit for which the Father planted the vineyard. We exist for the joy of the vinedresser and that joy will explode when the fruit is harvested. What amazing grace, that God has purposed that the branches enter into the joy of the vinedresser and the vine. And all we did was obey the command to live to love with Jesus, ask Him for the life giving power to love, and He did it! He did loved His own for us, so that His joy would be in us and our joy made full. How do you respond to these words?

Acknowledgment: Music from “Carried by the Father” by Eric Terlizzi. www.ericterlizzi.com