It all begins with the love God has for us.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
We are called to remain in the love which we are first shown. The commandments tell us how we can avoid stepping outside of this river of love.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments
and remain in his love.
We don't earn love by carrying out the commandments. The commandments draw boundaries to show us how we can safely live lives of love. To break a commandment is inherently a failure of love. Yet we are called to more than this principle of avoiding things that are less than love. We are called to actively love. We are called to give of ourselves.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one's life for one's friends.
Those who seek to gain there lives end up losing them. They seek after that which they cannot hold. But those who give their lives for others discover the true source of lasting joy.
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
Those who embrace this approach to love become friends with Jesus. This self-giving love is so essential that we don't really understand Jesus enough to be his friends if we ignore it. It is impossible to have a real friendship with Jesus if we don't allow him to transform us with his own self-giving love and make us able to love that way ourselves.
No one has a particular advantage self-giving love. We all need the grace of the Holy Spirit to be made capable of it.
The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter
were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit
should have been poured out on the Gentiles also,
for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.
But God stands ready to send his Spirit at the slightest request on our part. He sits waiting and longing for us to ask for more of his Spirit. He wants to teach us to love and to make us his friends.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
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