Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

John 13:2 During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him,
In verse one, we learned that Jesus knew His time was short and was motivated by His enduring love for His own. In this verse we learn the setting: it was during supper and the betrayer, Judas, inspired by Satan, was primed and ready to act. Judas did not belong to Jesus. Can Judas say truthfully that the devil made him do it? No. The devil put the idea in his heart, and he chose to do it. Let’s be careful that we don’t blame others or the devil for our choices. Even so, this is the work of God and it is marvelous in our eyes! Judas was necessary for God’s love to be revealed and known.

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

John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
In this verse and the next 2 verses John tells us what Jesus knew that motivated Him to wash His disciples feet. In this verse we learn that Jesus knew His time had come to depart from this world. It is interesting to me that John didn’t write that Jesus knew it was time to die. He is the resurrection and the life. Even though He may die in this world, yet shall He live to God. So Jesus was thinking that He was in His last hours with them. We also learn that He was moved by His enduring love for them. This reminds us that our time with those we love is short and that we have the same love in us that Jesus had. So when we love with Him today we are sustaining His love for His own to the very end of time. What a mission! What purpose! What a privilege! What glory to God!

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

John 12:50 “I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me."
The words God commanded Jesus to speak, namely, that He is Life and the Light of the world sent by God to save us from the darkness of thinking that merely breathing in our bodies and pursuing satisfaction in this world is life, are the words of eternal life. They reveal what eternal life is! To know the Father and to know the Son is to know by experience the Life of God. Do you recognize that if you believe in and receive Jesus as the one and only Life—the source of life—then you have eternal life living in you! And you know you have it because God commanded Jesus to give it to you. Jesus prayed to His Father recorded in John 17:1-3. “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Have you believed God’s testimony that Jesus is His Life sent into the world to deliver you from the darkness and death of the natural self-life in this world? It’s actually easy to tell. You live to love with Jesus everyone He puts in your path for His glory. Listen to what John wrote in his first epistle. “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren (1 John 3:14-16). Such is the judgment of God revealed in Jesus, whose love is the light of Life.

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

John 12:49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.”
The reasons these words that Jesus spoke will judge all men is that they were given Him by the Father. God commanded Jesus to say and speak these things. Therefore, to reject these words amounts to rejecting Jesus, which is the same thing as rejecting God, Himself. When Jesus said if you love your life in this world, you will lose it, and if you recognize that Jesus is Life and therefore hate your life in this world, your life will be saved from darkness, those words judge all men, because it is obvious what they believe. If they love their lives in this world, that is, think that expressing themselves to gain approval and significance in this world satisfies them, then they are dead and in darkness. If they love Jesus and think that gaining His approval and making Him significant by loving and loving with Him, then the judgment is that they have Life and walk in the Light just as He was in the Light. What is the judgment of these words about our lives? We are meant to ask that question because that was the question Jesus intended this crowd to ask themselves. We are being judged by these words everyday. There is no escape from them. They search us and declare the truth. Living to love with Jesus is the evidence that you believe the words which Jesus spoke on this day to the crowd, that they were from God.

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

John 12:48 “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.”
We continue to be amazed at the sayings of Jesus which He cried out in the temple just before His last Passover and His greatest demonstration that He is Life. To reject these sayings—namely that Jesus is the Life and Light of God sent into this world to save us from our darkness—is to reject Jesus. In the next verse, which we’ll take up tomorrow, Jesus explained what He meant when He said someone besides Him judges the world—that is judges those who are in darkness. The words we’ve considered the last few days are powerful to judge everyone. He said that He was Life and that He is the exact expression and representation of God, the Father. His life is the only life in this world. To believe in Jesus is to believe those words and act accordingly, which is to hate your life in this world, your all-consuming self-consciousness, self-importance, self-ambition, and self-approval and to love Him as the only source of Life in this world. Whoever rejects these words of Jesus, will be judged by them. Do we live our lives consumed with a consciousness of self, that is what we love, think, desire, and judge or with a consciousness of what Jesus loves, thinks, desires, and judges? These words are the foundation for living to love with Jesus.

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