Loving Me Like No Other Can part III
John 15:12-14 (Amplified Bible)
12This is My commandment: that you love one another [just] as I have loved you.
13No one has greater love [no one has shown stronger affection] than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends.
14You are My friends if you keep on doing the things which I command you to do.
My daughter is a loyal and faithful friend. No matter what her friends do or don’t do for her she will still go out of her way for them, if it is within her power or mine to do. I use to get upset with her because it seemed as if I was the go to parent, the one that had to chauffeur children, our house was always the one that everyone was coming to spend the night over, and we were the one’s always hosting parties and events. My daughter literally laid down her life in service to her friends, and still does. I guess what use to agitate me the most is that seldom did she get the same love and sacrifice given back to her. One day it hit me, don’t get mad, she had learned this from you, and how I was with my friends and family alike, that I rarely said no and I would lay down my life in service for others. But I cannot take the credit ultimately because I learned this behavior from my mother.
Christ loves us so much that he came into the earth with the express purpose of loving us to death. What I mean is that He loved us enough to endure death for us. His love caused Him to aspire to do the will of His Father that sent Him and to endure the cross and all that would entail. You see Christ would not have life taken from Him, but He would willingly lay it down for us. He would give to us, something that we hardly deserved, but so badly needed. Laying down one’s life is not just the act of dying for them, but it is the act of service to them, it is the offering of sacrifice, human subjection and sometimes suffering. Christ’s love brought Him there for us. There is a movie I love called the “Princess Bride” and there is a line in the movie when two characters are about to have a sword fight and one calls out “to the death” and the other says, “no, to the pain.” It is that pain of suffering that love carried Christ to and carried Him through.
How much of yourself would you lay down for a friend? Would you suffer, endure pain that was someone else’s just because you loved them and they were your friend? If we answered honestly, the answer would probably be no. But Christ did, it was His love that made Him do it! What has your service or sacrifice been to God, or to man? Think about it are you a friend or an outsider?
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