Seventh Day Baptist
Christian Education Council
PO BOX 1678
Janesville, WI 53547
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 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. 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 as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
(ESV)
—John 15:9-17
by: Dale Rood.
To say love is commanded is not a grit your teeth and gut it out sort of thing. It is a thing that flows from abiding in Jesus’ love. It comes out of being a friend of God as opposed to being a servant of God (v.15). Yes, we are to be servants, but here we are focusing not so much on the obligation to serve as the motivation to serve. Jesus in His teaching and His death and life gives us motivation to love, power to love, and the model for love. “As the Father loved me, I also have I loved you” (v.9).