By: Laurie Ousley, ND, CNH
John 15:9-17
"As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father's commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. 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. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in My name. This is My command: Love each other."
The Father has chosen us. The Son has chosen us. The Spirit has chosen us. We are a chosen people. We are chosen; to be friends of God; to experience for ourselves the change that occurs when we choose to have Christ actually live within us - so that like one person said "He is bursting out our seams"; to reveal Him to those who are unaware of His great love for them; to have power through His Spirit to show the world (through our own changed lives) that God has something far greater in mind for them than what they are now experiencing; to have a complete joy, a joy that can only occur when we have the love of God so deeply entrenched in our lives that others will see Christ - His love, His peace, His compassion, His forgiveness, His mercy, His patience, His kindness, His gentleness, His goodness. That will be the bearing of the fruit that will last.
Never forget that God has chosen you because of His great, all-consuming love for you. Experience it today.May you open your heart to the Lord that you may hear voice leading you in the way to go in every aspect of your life, that you may experience His joy and bear His fruit that others will see Him living in you.
In His Service,
Laurie
The purpose of this series is to encourage people to live as loving,
compassionate, and peacemaking children of God: Jesus tells us to pray, "Thy
kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matthew 6:10) God
tells us through Micah (6:8), "He has told you, O man, what is good; And what
does the Lord require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk
humbly with your God." And we know from Revelation 21:4 that there will be no
more mourning, or crying, or pain, or death. Thus, Christian living requires us
to set the standards of these conditions here on earth for our fellow human
beings, and for the other animals, as a witness to the rest of the world. To do
otherwise is not Christian.
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