Morning time with God: Part 1
As soon as I woke up this morning, the
Spirit showed me today’s lesson: that the whole while Jesus was being despised
and rejected of men,[1] he
was demonstrating the agapè-love of God through everything he endured.[2]
This is unfathomable to me. Jesus was the
only person who lived such a righteous life that he was not only worthy of our
respect and admiration but was worthy of our worship and attachment as Immanuel,
“God with us”.[3]
And yet, when he experienced utter
despising and rejecting from the people he himself had created, he responded with
unceasing, unfailing, and undiminished agapè-love.
Morning time with God: Part 2
As I was typing this out in a sharing email
to our home church, God expanded this for me in a very helpful and encouraging
way.
It started with me clarifying that the love
Jesus expressed to his brothers, the love he expects us to express towards one
another, is indeed the agapè-love that has been so central to our understanding
of attachment to God.
I now summarize agapè-love as the
distinctive love that seeks God’s best for someone. It is the love Jesus told
his disciples to have for our enemies. It doesn’t require attraction whatsoever
in order to have a genuine desire for an opponent to know God’s very best.
In the following Scriptures, I am simply
identifying that each time Jesus refers to love, it is agapè-love. In other
words, he is not telling us to have the affectionate love of friendship, or the
affectionate love of family, or the affectionate love of marriage (even though
in English we use the same word “love” for all these attachments).
Instead, when we understand that he was
using a very distinct word in the Greek language, “agapè”, we can get a sense
of how this love transcends normal affections (while making each of the
appropriate affections rise up to their highest expression), and calls us to
see people through the eyes of God’s perfect goodness.
On the night of Jesus’ arrest, as he prepared his disciples for the impending trauma they would experience because of his suffering (how agapè-loving is that!), look at how central agapè-love was to him:
- “A new commandment I give to you, that you agapè-love one another: just as I have agapè-loved you, you also are to agapè-love one another.”[4]
- “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have agapè-love for one another.”[5]
- “This is my commandment, that you agapè-love one another as I have agapè-loved you.”[6]
- “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”[7]
- “These things I command you, so that you will agapè-love one another.”[8]
When Jesus told the disciples that they
would be his friends if they did what he commanded, he wasn’t saying that we
prove our friendship by obedience. He wasn’t saying that, if we are his friends,
we will keep the Ten Commandments.
No, what he was saying was that, as they were
about to witness God showing “his love for us in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us”,[9]
the way they would walk with him in friendship was if they became like him in agapè-loving
others.
Have we not seen this, that groups of
friends unite around similarities? People are friends because they share the same
interests, values and worldviews.
So, Jesus was not telling his disciples
that they could attain the level of friendship with him if they met the requirements
of obeying everything he ever commanded.
No, he was telling them that his whole focus,
the thing he commanded, the thing that someone would need to have in their
lives to share the same interests, values and worldview as Jesus, was showing the
same agapè-love to one another as he was expressing to them.
Morning time with God: Part 3
What is the connection between Jesus showing
unceasing, unfailing, and undiminished agapè-love through the whole time he was
despised and rejected of men, and Jesus calling us to agapè-love one another as
he has agapè-loved us?
Simply that his expectation that we agapè-love
one another would include every time we feel despised and rejected by others, particularly
those who claim to walk in the agapè-love of Christ.
Does that mean we are to suppress all our
feelings of hurt and heartache when we are despised and rejected by family,
friends and fellow believers?
No. That’s the whole point of connecting
the dots, that our sympathetic high priest knows our weakness when we are
despised and rejected because he endured the same temptations as ourselves, but
without every sinning.[10] Him
being “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”[11] tells us that he associates very well with
the sorrows and griefs of his brothers.
Morning
time with God: Conclusion
Jesus’ life of love carries with it the
sense of, “You go, and do likewise.”[12]
This comes out clearly in the exhortation to, “be imitators of God, as
beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for
us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”[13]
The agapè-love that God demonstrated on the
cross, and exemplified in the gracious gift of redemption, is the same love we
are to have for everyone, even when it involves being despised and rejected of
men. And, since Jesus already gave us his example, and the Holy Spirit is with
us to enable us to do the will of God, we can certainly tell God we are willing
to go and do likewise, and then accept whatever changes God will make to
transform us into the likeness of his Son.
© 2021 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
[1] Isaiah 53:3
[2] Romans 5:8 (agapè-love
is the distinctive Greek word used for the love of God, and the love God calls
his children to express to him, one another, and even our enemies).
[3] Isaiah 7:14; Matthew
1:23
[4] John 13:34
[5] John 13:35
[6] John 15:12
[7] John 15:14
[8] John 15:17
[9] Romans 5:8
[10] Hebrews 4:15
[11] Isaiah 53:3
[12] This was Jesus’
conclusion to the parable of the Good Samaritan. As it was the one who showed
mercy to the injured man who truly loved his neighbor, Jesus called people to
do likewise in all their dealings with one another.
[13] Ephesians 5:1-2
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