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.
Jesus talked to people everyday in His ministry and He had to be an Influential Person, because He is the Son of God...He is the Son of the One who is LOVE...He tried to convince the people of Israel and to all corners of the world to believe in God and to believe in Him...And much of His teachings were about LOVE...Yet, this process of teaching everyone to love and His teaching ministry is a difficult one that continues today...Everyone does not believe in Jesus today...Each new generation must decide whether they believe in Jesus or not believe in Him...The past generations of believers have died, so the current generation of believers is the last one, until the next generation of people come along...In one of His teachings He taught us that the least among us is the greatest, and the last would be first and the first would be last...He taught His Disciples to serve others...In one of His last commands He told us was to love one another...And two thousand years later that teaching is still as important now as when He first mentioned it to His Disciples...He knew His Disciples would struggle and have their differences, but if each one of them loved one another, He knew that they could and would stay together and teach the next generation about Him...
Jesus, Himself, had others who questioned Him about His teachings and His relationship to His Father...The ones questioning Him were mostly the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, and scribes, and others who knew the Old Testament...They could not see who He was and they did not recognize Him as the Word, the One full of Grace and Truth...The One who was sent from God to teach us...So He goes about with the story of the True Vine and it is about love and loving one another...
This story of love sort of reminds me of the U. S. Civil War...The Civil War was over, and hopefully love would become the dominant factor after the war...Yet, there is that struggle that continues...Was freedom really gained for all those concerned, and do we all believe after the war that in our deeds believe our what Thomas Jefferson would later write in the second paragraph of the United States Declaration of Independence?...Jefferson wrote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."...President Lincoln was shot right after the war and the Civil War seems to be incomplete...Now whether Lincoln could have completed the war on a loving, friendly, togetherness, non-violent note, and convince us that all men are created equal note, with all the equality of rights that others had, is one to think about...The freed men and women continued to suffer from social, economic, and educational injustices...I see the end to Civil War and the descendants have been struggling for many years afterwards and that war still is somewhat incomplete...The current generation of the Civil War descendants continue their march for justice and equality, even today...I believe this struggle will continue until we love each of our neighbors, or as Jesus told us to love one another...
When we do love one another, we are Jesus' Disciples, and His followers...When we truly can love our neighbors and love and pray for our enemies, it seems that many struggles end and love and harmony take over in place of biases, tension, inequality, injustice, blind sightedness, and traditions of days gone by...Then we clearly see that God made man in His Image and all men all around the world are created equal by Him...
Jesus teaches us to love God and to love neighbor...He says this is the Greatest Commandment...Love was and is Jesus' answer then and it is still the answer today...He did not teach the love of this world and the love of flesh...The LOVE of God abides in Jesus and those who follow Him, and when we love Him we have overcome the evil one....So let us not love this world or anything in the world...If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him...For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world...Let us let go of the love of this world and empty our love for the world so that it can be replaced by the love of Jesus; only then will we begin to love people as He LOVES us...That is His Grand Harmony and the Truth, the Way, and the Abundant Life He intended us to live and love....Then all the world and all men will live and love each other in His Great Harmony...God Himself will be with all people; He will wipe every tear from all the people's eyes...The God of LOVE will be with all and everyone...Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more...