Jacobs Thoughts and Doings

 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.  I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

John 17:25-26

The clock is ticking, so to speak, as Jesus shares deeply with his disciples.  This is the last sentence in John 17.  John 18 opens with Jesus in the Mount of Olives at night, having finished the Last Supper with his disciples.  No more teaching, the time has come when Jesus is not just the teacher but our compassionate sin bearer.  The Cross looms large!

What is his prayer for us?  That the love you (Father God) have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.  Yes, the most wonderful news there is – Jesus did everything necessary to so change us so that he can dwell, or live, with us.  The basis of this relationship is that the divine love of God and his Son, may be in us – the very same love of the Father and Son.  His love is now our love!  

What more can be said?  The Feast is over.  The night has fallen.  The events that are about to happen shock the soul.  Calvary looms.

I begin to see that Jesus’ final words in the Upper Room lead directly to the Cross where the uniting love of God, Jesus and the Spirit won our salvation.  We kneel in awe, overwhelmed by thanksgiving.  The love of God is stronger than any force, spiritual or material.  And, believe it or not, that love now controls my life, and yours, and every believer on earth.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”  My underline.

John 17:24

Once again, Jesus not only speaks of love but sees everything through the eyes of the love that binds God and Jesus – the most ancient love we can comprehend, love that loved before the creation of the world.

I am just beginning to understand the fundamental truth, that God the Father and God the Son loved one another and with that very same love, they love us.  There in the Upper Room Jesus explains to his disciples this truth that opens doors and windows in all directions.  In a few short hours he will give his life an Atonement for sin, a deed that grants us salvation.  I tend to think about that aspect of my salvation, I seldom rejoice in the love that bound Father and Son.  Jesus declares that it is the explanation for everything!

That love, the bedrock of all our theology, precedes the Creation and supersedes it as the key that opens all the doors of grace.  Does that mean that without that love bond there would be no creation, no physical life as we know it?  Does it mean that love is at the heart of all we can possibly know?  Yes, and yes.

Jesus saved me and presented me to his Father who accepted me with open arms, and invited me to experience the very love that produced the universe!

Can I grasp that?  Can I build my life on it?  Through the Spirit of the Lord, that is not only possible but essential.

I think we have more geranium blossoms than any other plant just now.  I admired this glorious bloom, catching the rays of the sun and sharing the warmth with us.

 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

John 17:25, 26

Jesus, in these final hours with his disciples before his crucifixion, shares the ultimate truth, if that is an acceptable way to put it.  The point is in the question, who is this Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph and Mary and Son of God?

Jesus, in the stillness of the Upper Room, bares it all!  Jesus knows the Father!  At first this does not seem to have much life-changing meaning.  Jesus clarifies what he is saying by using a negative, “The world does not know (the Father).”  Jesus does.  And here on this night to be remembered Jesus reminds his disciples who he is, again.  He is pleased that his disciples know that God sent him to rescue us.

Then, Jesus reminds all of love, here the love of his Father that Jesus describes and proceeds to say that and will continue to do so.  The reason?  So that we know that God the Father loves Jesus and that same love is in us, by grace, to love our blessed Lord Jesus.   As God loves Jesus, we love Jesus so we are bound together by love.  Then Jesus said an amazing truth, “That I myself may be in them.”  Divine love binds us together in an eternal embrace of love.

John 17 should not be read hurridly, it is to be digested slowly and well.  Help me, Jesus to read it and to begin to comprehend its life-changing depth.  I stand, and kneel in awe.

I enjoy the way the sunflowers reach up, now to the humming bird feeder.  All the suflowers are volunteers, from last year’s dropped seeds.  We enjoy watching them grow.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

 John 17:24

We have been considering the wonderful love of God that really does surpass knowledge.

Jesus is praying to God, “you loved me before the creation of the world.”  Everything grows from that love bond.

I see in this verse a new and important dimension of the love that binds Father and Son.  It begins with something that I admit, I never thought about much, if at all.  That is that the Father, God, loved Jesus, his Son, before the creation of the physical world that we now inhabit.  The love bond between the Father and the Son undergirds everything else.  It is the ultimate, unchangeable reality.  From our point of view it always was and always will be!

That powerful love is available to believers, us.  It enables us to see Jesus in all his glory.  Knowing Jesus changes everything.  It is all based on a common reality, love.  Jesus came to earth because of the love that bonds him with his Father.

How can I know this love?  Jesus said, we see his glory because we are where he is!  This is more than proximity, this is an eternal bond!  It is the glue of the universe.  I know this love, as a believer, as you do.  It binds us together, the basis of our lives.

Lord Jesus, embrace my yielded heart, saturate me with this gift of love.

There is something about this plant that lifts my spirits.  It blooms always, always, until the Winter cold!

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:10 – 12

I find these words very helpful, it helps me to understand love, divine love, the basic emotion that goes beyond ourselves and our self-interest.

I find myself asking, “How can I love God more?”  That is not a bad question, but John shifts the language to explain something far more profound, and helpful.  Instead of us loving God, he rejoices in the fact that the most important thing is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The answer to my question is to look to Jesus and his love, not to my own.  I do not find it very helpful to examine my love or loves, but to know (without totally understanding) the mighty love of God.

What is the love of God?  It is the love that led him to send Jesus, at inestimable cost, to come among us and die as the atoning sacrifice for our self-centered sinfulness.  Huge.

So, herein lies the answer about the love of God, God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to atone for our sins, to rescue us from spiritual death and to give us new life.  That, my friend, is divine love!

Furthermore, John goes on, it is that love of God that gives us love to love one another. We can not fully explain that love but if we love one another like God loves us, then we begin to see into the heart of God and find solace in knowing that that love is in us by the new birth.

For this is the message you heard from the beginning: we should love one another.

1 John 3:11

The encouragement to love is at the very center of our walk with God.  We read and know that God is love.  He is not hate.  Not suspicion.  Not qualified love.  No, John lets us figure out what he means by loving one another.   That is not easy.

I find it much easier to love Jesus than to love those who inhabit my world.  But there is no equivocation here, no formulas about how much we are allowed to hate without breaking the love rules.  No. We should love one another.  Full stop!

So, what happens when we carry hate toward another, and still love Jesus? I have no idea, to tell the truth, but I cannot simply sweep my lack of love under the rug.  I must love!  I am committed to love!  I am saved to love!  When I find myself not loving there is only one thing for me to do, repent of unlove and allow the love of Jesus to flow in and through me.

This is no doubt one of the hardest words of the Lord to practice.  Alas, John reminds us, it is the message that we heard from the beginning.   John is convinced that the love of Jesus that is ours by faith loves all persons, no matter what.  We may disagree with some things, but one thing stands always, I must love!