Agape and Abiding: John 15

I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:5 [NASB]

What was Jesus talking about in the first eleven verses of John 15? He talked about love and abiding. God loves each of us so much He sent His Son to earth to die for us. That is sacrificial love. God knew in advance His Son’s death was necessary. His task was to die for us so we would not die forever and lose out on being in a relationship with God.

That is sacrificial love, agape, and comes from God. So often we hear of it as brotherly and sisterly love among Christians, but it first came from God and gets its definition from Him. God gave this sacrificial love whether a person accepted or rejected it. He loves us that much. God loves us dearly. Do we love someone that much? Would we be willing to lay down our lives for someone?

Jesus explained this kind of love would be made full in believers when we love Him in return and others (vs. 11). How are we supposed to love Jesus? He said how in verse ten. Jesus said, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Not doing what Jesus taught does not keep Jesus and the Father from loving you, but it shows you do not love Them. Remember, God showed His loved to us in that while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us (Romans 5:8). That means there is nothing you can do to earn His saving love. He already loves you sacrificially, dearly.

Jesus said to His disciples in these verses to abide in Him. Abiding shows our love for Him because by doing this we keep His commandments, remain clean, get what we ask for in prayer, bear fruit, glorify the Father, and have complete and full joy (vs. 3, 7-8, & 11). What is abiding? Abiding is remaining in Christ, following His teachings and examples for living so as not to depart from it but to continue walking in them, holding onto them and waiting for Christ’s return. It’s not just doing what Jesus said today, but it’s for tomorrow, and tomorrow’s tomorrow, and on and on until Jesus returns while we wait expectantly. Abiding is not just doing, it is being and thinking. It’s not giving up hope, but holding on to what Jesus taught, holding onto His word (vs. 3).

Do you abide in Christ? Your reward is God’s love and complete joy. With this joy, God’s joy (charis) in you is never ending because it comes from Him and He is eternal. Why wouldn’t we want to abide in Christ when He loves us dearly. That’s what His sacrificial love for us states. God loves us dearly, and it cost Him dearly. It cost Him the horrific death of His Son who carried the weight and guilt of our sins so we could be reunited with Him. That is dear love. That is sacrificial love. That is AGAPE love.

Agape is more than what one Christian gives to another. It is the love God gave them and they accepted upon belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior. Agape love is sharing the love God put into a believer’s heart with another believer. Agape love is sacrificial. What are you sacrificing to love another person?

·         You are sacrificing your hold on your life, your freewill, so that Jesus becomes Lord of your life.

·         You are sacrificing walls that once guarded your heart.

·         You are sacrificing safety to show love to the world.

What were Jesus’ points in these eleven verses?

·         He is the true Way, and true Vine.

·         The Father, of which Jesus is the Son, is the true God who takes and gives life.

·         Those who abide in Jesus, who continue in His way and keep living expecting His return, are the healthy vine and will be pruned, made clean and pure, so they bear more fruit.

·         Those who do not abide in Jesus will be cut off and cast down together into a fire to be burned. They have no fruit and are not true vines.

·         The people who produce fruit, who abide in Christ, can ask for what they wish and it will be answered through Jesus.

·         Abiding in Christ glorifies the Father.

·         Abiding proves you are a disciple of Christ.

·         Jesus loves dearly and sacrificially those who abide in Him, just as His Father loves Him.

·         Jesus told His disciples this so His joy would be in them and their joy would be made full and complete, abounding.

Are you abiding in Christ? Are you showing your sacrificial love for Him by obeying His commandments?

Why settle for human-inspired and -originated love? Instead, seek the love that is dear and was bought with a great price. Seek God’s sacrificial love that gives you an eternal relationship with Him. That is True Love!

True Love. True Joy. True Life.

These come through Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” in John 14:6.

Come, He says, accept His gifts of love, joy, and life.

God dearly loves you.

Come to Him and receive this great sacrificial love for yourself through Jesus Christ.

Lord, I come to you acknowledging I do not know how to live this life of abiding without You. I fail all the time because of my self-seeking. Forgive me of this. Please give Your love and joy to me. Teach me how to abide in You. Teach me how to love sacrificially.

On Bended Knees

When life seems to toss you and make you spin ’round,

When time seems as if it will never slow down,

When battles are many and resources few,

That’s when I’m thankful God’s promises are new.

Every morning when waking and ope’ning my eyes,

When first breath is taken and before I arise,

I close my eyes again, and thank God above

Today I get to live and experience His love.

Before feet shuffle out to the floor,

Before clothes quickly taken from behind closed door,

Before I shuffle for caffeine intake,

I stand amazed wond’ring at His grace.

To allow me such privilege to see life again,

To let me enjoy what He has planned,

To lead me with sureness knowing He’s in control,

My God is wondrous and I’ve stories untold.

Stories of fear, joy, laughter, and pain,

Stories of glee, sadness, and happiness again,

Tales of my God leading me through rough seas,

Preluded by Him and I on bended knee.

Not that God need bend His knee,

But that He wanted to be with me.

This finite person whom He created

Is one He loves and desires to spend day with.

The great almighty God chooses to spend time with one

Who wrestled, ran, hid, and finally came undone,

Who sat upon floor with wonder new

To realize His love paid my sin price; I’m renewed.

You see, I’m nothing special, as the world knows,

But to God, I’m cherished, I’m special as the rose.

I once ran away because sin had me scared,

But Jesus’ love won out and my heart is repaired.

Yes, there’re days when I know I’ve done wrong

Still God puts music in my heart and I hear His song.

He reminds me, “Jesus loves me, this I know”

And then I’m undone again, bow down, the Bible tells me so. 

It’s for nothing I’ve done or could ever do

That Jesus chose and died for me, death and sin subdued.

This great love, hard to fathom, for a sinner such as I,

Yet He continues to tell me, for you I died.

As I ponder this great love, this grace and mercy so free,

Reality is Jesus did it, He died on that tree.

What great love, what great pain, to ensure my soul!

Would I do the same to rescue one dead, so cold?

My love’s not as great, broad, and vast as His

Yet He’s working with me, patient He is.

Remolding and shaping, cutting out hard spots, too,

As I trust in His faithful hands, to make me brand new.

A bit more water here to soften this lump;

A razor’s edge there removing that bump.

Gently kneading to soften and smooth the clay;

My heart’s fragile, but more open each new day.

Tender steps with new heart in place

I follow my Savior, in His path I stay.

Venturing afar is not how to remain

As His close child, protected by the Master’s hand.

So, each day must start upon waking afresh

One breath then two, then deep breath,

Ope’ning my eyes, shuffling feet to the floor

Kneeling with my Savior, Master, and Lord.

Ask in My Name

 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” (John 14:12-15 [NASB])

So often, we come to God and ask for things and wonder when He will give that for which we ask or why hasn’t He given what I asked. You claim John 14:13 saying, “I asked in Jesus name and prayed a prayer like this. ‘Lord God, You know my needs and You know I need this now. I cannot go on. I ask this request in Jesus’ name.’” We must consider our prayers and four things Jesus set before His disciples in verse thirteen.

We need to consider what kind of prayer Jesus spoke of here. Is that need or desire something for which we need so intensely we would humble ourselves and beg? Do we crave this answer to prayer like we crave the relationship with God the prayer supposes? Do we require the relationship with God that prayer implies? When Jesus taught the disciples about prayer in this passage, He began with verse two showing the depth of relationship He has with the Father. He said in verse two, “I go to prepare a place for you in My Father’s house.” To make ready a place for someone in one’s house means a very close relationship exists. Understanding this, we must realize what Jesus said in the first part of verse thirteen. The asking comes with the understanding a close, intimate relationship exists between the Father and the disciple. When that is the case, the craving the person does is likely for what God wills. One’s asking is in line with the will of the Father.

The second thing needing understanding in this verse is Jesus said, “Ask in My name.” Asking in Jesus’ name is not a magic phrase to make all one’s dreams come true. It is a power statement. When Jesus told His disciples to ask in His name, He said to ask realizing and knowing personally everything which His name includes. Remember His stature, His rank, and everything which His name involves, recalling the power He has over demons, life, death, sin, resurrection, sickness, health, provisions, hope, love, etc. Jesus meant each disciple must be in a close personal relationship that craves communion with God. This supposes a relationship that desires His will and asks based on Jesus’ authority on earth and in heaven, knowing He has the power to do what you ask.

For the third point in this verse, Jesus said when His disciples ask craving for continued communion with God so what is asked for is God’s will, and knowing well Jesus has the power to cause that for which one asks, He will do it. This “do” is not just an everyday doing like working in the yard, but comes with divine appointment and ordination. That for which you crave in the Father’s will and ask of Him in the power of Jesus, the Savior will appoint and ordain it to be done according to the Father’s will. He has power over heaven and earth and gives divine promise that whatever is in accordance to God’s will eventually will come to happen. “Doing” understands power resides in the person to effect the action.

The final point of this verse says these types of requests to the Father and their resultant answers will glorify the Father. The Son will not do anything that doesn’t bring glory to Him. What is this glory? Is it glorifying to God just say off the cuff, “Hey, God gave it to me,” then not live a life that supports the statement, but which blatantly shows continual, intentional disobedience to the Father’s will and commandments? No. Verse fifteen speaks about this. If one does not keep Jesus’ commandments, one does not love Him. Therefore, one is not in a close relationship with God and the cravings for which he or she begs is not necessarily in God’s will. Jesus said, for Him to answer any prayer, if must glorify the Father. Glorifying means raising up the name of God so people can be in awe and wonder. To glorify God means to praise Him for who He is and what He’s done. It means to celebrate and honor the Lord and proclaim His excellences. When a person glorifies the Father, he or she recognizes all good things received came not of his or her own doing, but from the Father and so testifies to His great mercy and grace.  

The person who glorifies the Father loves the Son and obeys His commandments. This person who obeys His commandments loves Him. A person who loves Jesus and obeys the Lord’s commands is the one in a close, intimate relationship with God, and recognizes the power of the Lord to cause that for which he or she asks in prayer. Finally, Jesus said this person who craves what God craves and will glorify the Father is the one for whom He will ordain to happen what a person prays for and upon what the Father and believer agree.

Ask having a deep relationship with God. God desires to have a deep relationship with you.

Dear Lord above, help me see where I have not grasped the depth of a relationship with You. Help me seek this relationship. Forgive me for my selfish intentions that have been in the way of what You want to do in me and through me. Make me useful for Your service for your glory. Amen.

Intimate Assurance

“The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant.” Psalm 25:14 [NASB]

This verse, translated from Hebrew, means the intimacy of the Lord or the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, who are in awe of and reverence Him, and He makes known to them His covenant, His pledge to His people. David avowed to God he had an intimate friendship with the Lord because of his awe of Him and their covenant of faithfulness to each other. To David, what made a person intimate with the Lord and in a covenant with Him? He recorded from verses four through twelve who the person is that is a friend of God.

In verses four and five, and expanded in verse eight and nine, God teaches His friend His ways and paths. This assumes the friend of God yearns to have God in his or her life and seeks Him to grow closer to Him.  In verses four and five, David desired to know God-His ways, paths, and truth. He expressed his desire was so great he would wait for God all day. With verses eight and nine, David proclaimed God is good and upright and so He willingly and desirously wants to teach sinners, all people, His way. God desires to have a relationship with all people, not just the ones who are good, or who think they are good. David foreshadowed the Messiah’s coming for all people because God wants to have a relationship, a covenant with everyone. With verse nine, he said, “God leads the humble in justice and teaches the humble His way.” As a person draws closer to God, that person becomes renewed in the image of God and is humble. God continues to teach that person to transform him or her into Himself-to make him or her humble. As the person learns more, he or she learns to care for other people. Justice, like that of God’s, becomes what the person seeks for every person.

David continued to describe the person who desires to be in an intimate friendship of covenant faithfulness with God in verse six and ten. In verse six, he recognized his sinfulness and neediness, and remembered God’s everlasting compassion and lovingkindness towards Him and throughout history. God’s lovingkindness (His goodness, kindness, and faithfulness) David recognized and stood in awe of. Then, with verse ten, he said these paths of God, of lovingkindness and truth, are available for those people who keep His covenant and testimonies. To each person who desires God and seeks to be in an intimate friendship with Him, God leads in His ways, He teaches and instills in the person, His goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and His truth (truth of His faithfulness, stability, and continuance). To each person who comes to God, He leads them to know and learn, and then to become like Him with His characteristics of truth, compassion, faithfulness, goodness, and kindness. David desired an intimate friendship with God. He desired that which God freely gave to him to become part of his own being. David wanted to live out in the world what God gave to him, these characteristics. He wanted to keep this covenant with God by sharing with the world about God and what God put into him when He renewed him.

With verses seven and eleven, David recognized he was a sinner. He understood God is the One who can forgive and cleanse all people from their sins so they can be in a relationship with Him, be made new in His image. He asked the Lord not to remember his sins, but in His goodness, kindness, and faithfulness remember Him with love and cleanse Him. David went further in verse eleven. He recognized he could not save himself and pleaded with the Lord, because of His glorious name’s sake, to pardon his great sin. David realized his sins were all against the Lord; they separated him from God. He recognized God’s great love and wanted His glory proclaimed continually so asked for forgiveness so the world would hear again of His goodness and faithfulness.

David ended this segment of Psalm 25 with a rhetorical question that pointed to his thematic statement. He said, “Who is the man who fears and awes the Lord? He will instruct him in the way he should choose.” The person who awes and reverences the Lord is the one who seeks to be with God and is the one to whom God teaches His paths and ways. This person is the one who chooses God’s ways out of lovingkindness, that is goodness, kindness, and faithfulness, for Him.

The person who fears the Lord in awe and reverence is the one in an intimate friendship with Him and seeks to know and follow Him. That person chooses to be faithful to his or her pledge/promise of love to God. That person chooses God above all others.

Are you one of those people?

Have you recognized your sinfulness and separation from God?

Are you humble because of following the Lord, His ways, His teachings, and His paths?

Do you seek justice and truth?

Are you good, kind, and faithful because of God’s goodness, kindness, and faithfulness to you?

Do you crave and seek God in an intimate friendship?

Are you faithful to God and His covenant faithfulness to you?

Are you this person who fears the Lord? If you are, the intimate friendship with the Lord is yours and you have no need other than to be in His presence. Your eyes will continually be toward the Lord (vs 15). You will rest in assurance nothing can pluck you from His hand, neither loneliness or affliction, troubles or distresses, nor sins or enemies.

v  You know with assurance God is your Guard and Deliverer; He is your             refuge.

v  You will wait with assurance that God’s integrity and uprightness will preserve you.

You will wait with assurance for your covenant God because of His goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and compassion to you, and yours to Him. He redeems His own.

God doesn’t only seek the good and right. Jesus said He came for the sick. He came to call the sinners (Mark 2:17). God wants to be in a relationship with each of us. He makes sinners clean. God is intimate with the upright (Proverbs 3:32). He is the one who makes each of us upright (Psalm 25:7 & 10). Just as the Lord spoke to Moses as a friend, He sought Him out and Moses craved Him (Exodus 33:11), so today God desires to be in a covenant (a faithful, intimate friendship) with you.

Lord, God almighty, I do not deserve anything You offer to me. Yet, You keep calling to me to come to You. Lord, I do not understand this great love and mercy of Yours, still, I am drawn to You. I am sinful and should not be near You. Cleanse me so I can come before You. Draw me into an intimate friendship with You for which I can never be sated so that I continue to desire You. Don’t let me go. Keep calling to my heart. Thank you for Your patient calling to me, that you never gave up on me. Thank you for your unending love, mercy, and faithfulness. I am Yours; draw me to You and never let me go. My heart I give to You forevermore. Amen.

Nations Will Know

When we become Christians by profession of faith and cleansing from sin, God calls us His own and makes us sacred for Him and His purposes. The Israelites experienced this same calling to be sacred/holy for and by God. God chose the people of Israel to be His people. He led them through a desert after rescuing them from slavery in Egypt. God prepared a place for them the people had never known. He was their Savior and Provider.

The Israelites did not quite understand and within a few years, the land of Israel split in two. Israel, the northern tribes, led by abominable kings and a queen, fell away from God and His purposes. The southern kingdom of Judah, in which Jerusalem lay and contained His temple, grew stubborn and rebellious later than the northern kingdom. They like all people sinned against God by being stubborn and insubordinate towards God and His laws, ordinances, and statues.

Each of these 12 tribes God called His own and made them sacred because of His choosing and calling. He set them up as the nation of God, a theocracy, to shine His light to the surrounding nations. The surrounding nations saw or heard about the Israelites’ God as they journeyed 40 years to the Promised Land. They knew of God’s power, might, provision, love, and salvation.

When the Judahites became impudent and stubborn (3:7), God sent His servant, a man called by Him to prophesy, to tell the people of Judah of His judgment against them because of their rebelliousness. Ezekiel first enacted God’s judgment then proclaimed it. He dared not proclaim it because God said the blood of the people, if he did not warn them, would be upon Ezekiel’s hands.

With 5:7-9, & 15, God through Ezekiel proclaimed,

Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Because you have more turmoil than the nations which surround you and have not walked in My statutes, nor observed My ordinances, nor observed the ordinances of the nations which surround you,’ therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold I, even I, and against you, and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of nations. And because of all your abominations, I will do among you what I have not done, and the like of which I will never do again.’

‘So, it will be a reproach, a reviling, a warning and an object of horror to the nations who surround you when I execute judgments against you in anger, wrath, and raging rebukes.’ I, the LORD, have spoken. [NASB]

The sacredness of the Israelites did not exempt them from God’s punishment, His judgment. Rather, as the loving Father, His love for the Israelites required Him to punish them to bring them back to Him. God sent them to be a light proclaiming Him as the One and Only God. Instead, the Judahites followed the gods of other nations. The people who were to shine a light for Yahweh, of whom the surrounding nations knew about, instead shone a light on their disobedience and rebellion.

Because of God’s love for the Judahites, He rebuked and punished them. When you near the end of Ezekiel, God proclaimed He would bring a remnant of the original Judahites back to the land He promised to them. They would still be His people called by Him to be a beacon. The people of Israel would either be a beacon for God’s love by their obedience or through their disobedience and God’s faithfulness to them carried out through judgment.

Each of us who are Christians have this same responsibility. We can be the sacred light of God to the people who surround us with our acts, words, and thoughts of love toward God and other people. We can live our lives obeying God or we can do what we want and be disobedient. This freewill is one of God’s gifts to humans. If, however, we choose in our freewill to walk away from God, He will chastise or rebuke us so we turn around and return to Him. Either way, God’s glory shines because of His love for us-a love so great He would discipline us. Just as the prodigal’s return brings great joy and the father’s love shines from his eyes on his son or daughter who returned, so the Father’s love and joy shine and He receives glory and praise when His child returns to Him after walking away.

I will give thanks to You, O LORD, among the peoples, and I will sing praises to You among the nations. For Your lovingkindness is great above the heavens, and your truth reaches to the skies. Be exalted, oh God, above the heavens, and Your glory above all the earth. (Psalm 108:3-4 [NASB])

Lord, help me be obedient to You and Your will each day. Lead me back to Your presence and forgive me when I turn away from You. Let Your name be praised and glorified in all I do and all You do to and through me. For You are glorious, oh Lord. Amen.