Listen here.
Welcome to
Devotions for Worship where we meditate on the appointed Scripture readings for
the upcoming Sunday. I am Pastor Eric Tritten from Gloria Dei Lutheran Church
in Hudson, OH.
Thank you for
being with me today.
The Gospel
reading this week picks up right where last week’s reading ended. Jesus talked
about being the vine and we being the branches, and now He expands on those
thoughts.
The Gospel lesson
for the 6th Sunday of Easter is …
The Reading: (Jn. 15:9-17
ESV)
As the Father has loved me, so have I
loved you. Abide in my love. 10 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. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may
be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his
friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15
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. 16 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. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one
another. (Jn. 15:9-17 ESV)
Comments
Abide and love. There
is something very important in what Jesus is talking about here. When we abide –
when we dwell in, live in, - Jesus’ love, we are filled with His love, His
forgiveness, and His life giving Spirit. The Christian life really begins here.
We receive Jesus’ love, His life, His salvation – and it gives us a new life –
the Christian life. It all starts with God loving us.
Then as we abide
in God’s love we begin to love others. Not loving as the world loves. The world
is desperately confused as to what love is mistaking it for lust, or for
passion, or for just being nice. Love connects us to God and to one another.
Abide in God’s love means to live in Him – in His grace, as His people – to rest
in what HE is doing in our lives, and what He is doing in our lives along with
forgiveness and salvation, is changing us to make us able to love – to love Him
and to love one another.
So the
commandment to love one another as Jesus has loved us, is the continuation of
God’s work in us. This isn’t a demand for us to reform, but a command to be
what God made us to be – to live the new life Jesus has won for us, which,
really, is what we, as God’s people want to do.
Of course, our
sinful nature struggles against abiding in God’s love. We want to live in our
own power, our own authority. We want to be autonomous and independent –
beholden to no one and only to ourselves true. So we will hear Jesus’ words as
a command and a warning. The description of love as laying one’s life down for
one’s friends challenges and convicts us. It leads us to repentance.
Nevertheless, the message is that Jesus chose us. We are branches connected to
Jesus the true vine. We are Jesus’ friends. We long to love as we have been
loved – and we strive to abide in God’s love always.
Meditate on this:
Think of the image of the vine and the branches. Consider how the vine keeps
the branches alive so that they bear fruit. Think of yourself connected to
Jesus, receiving life from Him, and loving Him and others because His life is
in you.
Prayers
Collect of the
Day from Lutheran Service Book.
Let us pray. O
God, the giver of all that is good, by Your holy inspiration grant that we may
think those things that are right and by Your merciful guiding accomplish them;
through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the
Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Memory Verse:
This is he who
came by water and blood-- Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water
and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is
the truth. (1 Jn. 5:6 ESV)
Thank you so much
for using Devotions for Worship, I pray that our time together has blessed you
and given you something to meditate on – some reminder of God’s grace to rattle
around in your brain – for the rest of the day.
Would you do me a
favor? If you got something out of this devotional time, would you like and/or
share it on Facebook, Twitter, or wherever you do social media? That would help
me get the word out, and hopefully help these devotions be a blessing to
others.
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God bless you!
Comments