The Joy of Glory

John 13:34-35 
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Reflection
What made this command new?

It’s not as if God had never commanded his people to be a loving community. In fact, the whole of the Law was often summarized as love of God and love of neighbor. How could there possibly be anything new about this command?

The “newness” is found not in the command to love one another, but in the description of what that love looks like. Jesus disciples were to love one another JUST AS HE LOVED THEM.

Their love was to mirror his love. This is how the world would know who actually belonged to Jesus as one of his followers… they would see their love and say, “Their love looks just like the love that we saw from Jesus himself.”

Well what kind of love has Jesus shown us?

Cruciform love. Sacrificial love. Humble love that gives itself so that the one loved might now joy in Jesus forever.

Jesus had just shown this love through the washing of his disciples feet, and in just a little while this love would literally be poured out of his veins upon the cross. Christ looks at the community of his followers and tells them to display the love of the cross before the world! He tells them to be a cruciform community!

Where do you get your definition of love from? As you think about what it means to love God and love your brothers and sisters in Christ… how are you defining what that love looks like?

Does your idea of love come from Hollywood? Or Friends? Or your own experiences? Jesus is calling to you and to me, commanding us to have our concept of love shaped by his cross.

Look upon the cross of Christ and hear his new command… “Love one another: JUST AS I have loved you.”

Be a cruciform community.

 
*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

John 13:1-20 (click here)
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:3-5 and 12-15)

Reflection
We grasp, scrape, and strive to have and keep whatever we want in life. We come into this life with closed fists and that is how we continue to live.

Yet here is Jesus… who has literally had all things given into his hands by God himself. And it is that very knowledge that motivates Christ not to live close-fisted, but open-handed. The truth that he owns all and is the Son of God over all is the very thing that leads him to kneel and wash the feet of his disciples.

How does that work?

It actually makes perfect sense if you think about it. All things had been given into Jesus’ hand… so he didn’t have to grasp, scrape, and strive for anything… it was all his. He didn’t have to live with closed fists in order to cling and keep what was his… all was secured by God his Father. His inheritance wasn’t going anywhere.

His relationship were secure. God was his Father… he came from him and was returning to him. His future was secure. Knowing this truth leads to complete and total freedom! Christ could live totally and completely sacrificially… with open hands… for he had no need to grasp for anything…

…neither do we.

Through Christ, we have been made sons and daughters of God. All things are ours (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). We don’t have to live grasping, scraping, and striving to gain and keep the things this world has to offer… no… our inheritance is secured by an unshakeable relationship with our Father… the sovereign God over all!

Such knowledge empowers us to live with open hands… sacrificing our lives for others… because in the end it’s not really sacrifice… even death isn’t a sacrifice… it’s gain!

And so, because we know, like Christ, that all things are ours and we will dwell with God our Father forever, Jesus can and does call us to be a community that mirrors his sacrificial love. A community that knees to wash the feet of one another and the world… a cruciform community.

 
*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.

Luke 10:25-36 (click here)
…desiring to justify himself, [he] said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29)

Reflection
Law-keeping, list-checking, legalism.

I’m an addicted to the high legalism offers through the drug of self-justification.

If Jesus will just give me the list, show me the boxes that need to be checked then I can make quick work of this “holiness” thing. This was the desire of the lawyer in Luke 10. He knew the requirements of the law… to love God and neighbor… but that second one seemed a bit too vague. He needed to make sure he had or could check off that box. He needed to be able to justify himself. So he asked Jesus to define, draw a box around the meaning of “neighbor.”

But Jesus refuses to make “loving your neighbor” an item on our “to do” list.

So… through one of his most famous parables, Jesus does what only he can do… he blows up our categories, resets the way we see the world, and puts our “to do” list through the paper shredder.

The “Good Samaritan” is annihilates the notion that the law of God is merely about list keeping and box checking. Jesus shows us that the law is aimed at the heart. Loving your neighbor is not merely a command to which your external actions should conform… it is a call that requires your heart’s affections to transform!

You cannot draw a box around compassion. You cannot make love a line item to be completed. You cannot check “loving your neighbor” off a list.

We need to be saved from our law-keeping, list-checking, legalism. We need to be rescued from our addiction to self-justification. We do not need Jesus to define “neighbor…” we need Jesus to be our savior!

And I have good news… Gospel news…

Christ died and rose for our justification, our transformation, and our ultimate glorification.

Have the affections of your heart been transformed by Jesus? Do we hear the call of Christ to love God and neighbor as another item to be placed on our “to do” list so? Do we hear that as something that has limits, a finish line, a box that can be checked and marked as completed?

Or…

Does Christ’s call stir up love in our transformed heart? Does it sound like a call, not to a task to be accomplished, but to a totally new way to live? Is our relationship with Jesus about merely conforming our external actions to a new set of rules… or is it about the transforming and transferring of our internal affections to a new ruler… to Jesus?

The good news of the Gospel doesn’t call us to be a law-keeping, list-checking, legalistic community… no… it calls us to be a Christ-empowered, compassion-driven, cruciform community.

*All previous devotionals may be found at www.thejoyofglory.com
*The complete SVCC Lenten reading guide is available here.