John 15:9-17
Here is a problem. We cannot give or receive love – the essence of God’s greatest commands and kingdom mandates, with walls around our hearts (we have built) which insulate us from God and each other. Sadly, with my walls up, my life was more about religion than Life. It certainly wasn’t about joy and celebration.
The most scandalous and extravagant action ever taken was by Jesus Christ over two millennia ago. It was scandalous because the object of the gift (us) was (and is) indifferent and even hostile toward the Gift. It was also scandalous because, while we were created in his likeness, through disobedience, had become alien in nature to the Giver.
It was extravagant because of the immeasurable distance the Giver went to reach us. Prior to Jesus Christ, the distance between God and us was far greater than the light years that astronomers use as a measure. What is the unit of measurement between the realms of heaven and earth anyway?
The great mystery is that once upon a time God’s realm and ours overlapped in a place where the first man and woman walked with God and were given dominion and responsibility over this place we know as the Garden of Eden. They disobeyed though and consequently the realms began to separate leaving this earth (and men’s hearts) separated and subject to death and futility.
Only a being that shared both man’s nature and God’s could restore the union between these realms. Driven by irrational affection for his fallen ones, God satisfied the overarching laws of eternal justice by coming Himself to earth as the Son of Man. Regardless the distance, He Himself has become the bridge between the realms.
For there is one God, and one mediator (a bridge if you will) also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave HImself as a ransom for all…. (1 Tim 2:5-6)
This cosmic act of reconciliation and restoration was precipitated and motivated by the driving force of the cosmos – love. I believe that ultimately love will be vindicated as the primary and unrivaled motivation and power in all realms. Some may say, “How can you say this only days after a Sandy Hook or less than a century after Auschwitz (events that He could have easily prevented had He chosen). All I can say to that accusation against God is that it is unhelpful, unwise and it will one day seem ludicrous, because we will discover that God has saved the tears of the victims. My deep suspicion is that they were His tears to start with.
The context of this passage in John is “abiding in Christ”, the true vine. The Mediator Himself is restating Love’s intentions that we abide in Him. In my present understanding abiding would mean; remaining intentionally conscious and appreciative of His love and His life which is now within us, where the unity of heaven and earth have even now been restored in those who have entrusted themselves to the extravagant Giver and His Gift. (This is why I am more inclined to think that our intended primary and essential identity is to be a blend of saint – sons and friends, something immeasurably greater than just a sinner – servant and slave saved by grace. How do you see your primary identity? Back to our passage;
Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love…These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full…This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you..No longer do I call you slaves; for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things I have heard from the Father I have made known to you…,I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He may give to you.
This I command you, that you love one another
I confessed that where I had spoken in His name without love as my primary motive, I was at best, conveying religion. Religion is that self-absorbed pursuit of God where there is conviction without compassion, form without substance and obedience without abiding. This is the one thing that lit Jesus’ fuse. (Think about the money changers and millstones from Matt 18:6 & 21:12)
I am aware of the temptation of making doctrines out of experience. I don’t want to add anything to scripture that isn’t already there. At the same time I also want to honor the Holy Spirit (my Teacher and Counselor) who affirms and connects my bible truths in the process of living in and through life’s experiences. It is in life’s tests and trials that I have been able to make some sense of scriptures that I have used to beat myself and others up with.
I believe the Holy Spirit has been restating bible truths to me in recent years through the filter of the Father’s love and grace. It seems to me (if I am hearing the Teacher correctly) that He delights in helping us understand how the restoration of heaven into our hearts in Christ redeems our experiences, making them a part of our stories. The process of living and abiding in Him makes Truth our own and it equips us in God’s ongoing mission of reconciling Heaven and earth. By transforming servants into sons he causes us to start looking like the Truth. As our stories are updated in His grace, we become the compelling message, joyfully validating the gospel with our lives.
We are a letter (or story)….known and read by all men, not written in ink, but rather by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. 2 Cor 3:3.
Having done a better job of watching over my heart, receiving some healing and change there in the past few years has liberated me to better love others. Having gone through this experience (believing I am made of the same stuff as others) causes me to speculate that the remaining distance between God and His chosen ones who remain in the earth will be bridged by His Love as it overthrows the stronghold of religion in all its myriad expressions in the hearts of His people.
Verses 15;7 &16 indicate that He will grant the requests made to Him by His abiding ones. If you were to lay that one request out there before the Lord, right now, knowing it was going to come true, what would it be?
Father, we pray that You would receive the reward of Your suffering – that reciprocation of Your great love from us, your lukewarm and indifferent children. We pray that Your Spirit would prevail within our hearts until every last barrier to your love is overthrown. Over come “religion” and destroy, through Your abiding ones, the lies that have been sown into this earth regarding You, the Giver and Jesus, the Gift. May we live joyfully and boldly out of our new natures in Christ, bearing the fruit of your love, amending all the damage we have done in Your name where we have failed to abide. In Jesus Name. Amen.