John 15:9-17
No Greater Love than Jesus' LOVE
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.
Philippians 2:1-11
Imitating Christ's Humility
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
John 16:33
In This World You Will Have Troubles
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
I have read that doing great things takes sacrifice and some suffering...The cross is both a sign and symbol and Jesus act was a sign and symbol of suffering and sacrifice...When Jesus said that there is no Greater Love than One to do this: to lay down One’s life for one’s friends...Jesus Great LOVE took a tremendous amount of sacrifice and suffering...
It would be nice if we never had any pain or sufferings in our lives...In this life you will have troubles...We cannot escape that inescapable fact...For this was said by a Man who always spoke the Truth...So in these troubles, and in your life’s experiences you will no doubt suffer in one way or another at some time during your life...In suffering, we sacrifice something...Jesus certainly suffered and sacrificed something...He gave up His life in His suffering on the cross...He suffered for us and for our sins, not His...And from suffering we can learn something...But it seems that sacrifice, and self-sacrifice, and suffering are not looked at as they once were...
I maybe wrong on these statements about suffering and sacrifice above, but there was once this Man who suffered and died for us, and He could have went through His life on earth without pain and suffering, but He chose not to...No, He chose to be a servant...He chose LOVE for us and the world...And being found in appearance as a Man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!...He showed us the Greatest LOVE of all -and it would come through sacrifice and suffering...