1 John 4:7-12
God is LOVE
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
John 15:1-17
Love One Another
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
The legacy of Jesus is that Jesus is LOVE...The legacy of His Father is that God is LOVE...
Jesus LOVED His Disciples even as the Father has LOVED Him...He told His Disciples to live within His LOVE...When we follow His teachings we are living in His LOVE...Jesus obeyed and followed His Father's will and He lives in His Father's LOVE...Jesus told His Disciples these things so that they would be filled with His Joy...Their cup of joy runneth over with His Joy...Our joy will overflow by following Him...Jesus ask that His Disciples love each other as much as He had LOVED them...And here was how they would measure LOVE—the greatest love is shown when a Person lays down his life for His friends; and we are His friends if we obey Him...Jesus would now no longer call His Disciples slaves, for a master doesn’t confide in His slaves...After three years of teaching and being His Disciples, they are now His friends...This is proved by the fact that Jesus had told them everything His Father had told Him...One of His last commands to His Disciples before His arrest was for them to love one another...We would be wise to do the same...
If I were ask to sum up Jesus in only one word, it would be LOVE...