Today is day eleven of the #iheartBible challenge that I’m hosting. If you have joined up, hooray! I’m glad you’re here. If you want to join up, then awesomesauce! Check out the challenge post for details and join in on the linky so we can all read one another’s posts during the challenge. I love Jesus and blogging, so I’m glad to see people joining in. We’d love to have you join, too.
Today’s verse is John 15.13. Read it below in its context (Why do I care about context?):
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.
The word that I am most attracted to in this verse is “friends.” Of course, the meaning of “friend” can be stretched. We have Facebook friends and we often use the word “friend” when we really mean “acquaintance,” or “colleague,” or even “someone I heard of once.”
But Jesus’ words here is using the word friend in its most pure and sincere form. He explains that a great friend will lay down his or her own life for another friend.
Little did the audience know, Jesus would eventually do just that: die for them.
I also think this verse is one of the most epic verses in the Bible because it points to the most epic sacrifice anyone has ever made. Jesus died for his friends. I’d say he considers all of us his friends.
You?
Love,
