The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse Passage – John 15:9-17 (day four)

Have you ever said, “I just don’t know what God wants me to do?”  Maybe you have felt that you have not heard from God in a while.  I have good news for you.  We have a direct command from Jesus!  This passage should answer that need.  We are to love…we are to serve…we are to bear fruit.  To love, to serve, to share Christ…they are all the same.  If we love God, we will serve others as a fruit of our relationship with Him.  The first and foremost service to another is to share the love of God with them.  There is a wonderful benefit to being obedient to this command also…”whatever you ask of the Father in Jesus’ name, He will give you.”  Love, joy, answered prayer…what more could a person want?  If we start with the commands that Jesus has already given us in Scripture, He may open more to us.  He looks for our faithfulness to the basics first before giving the big assignments!

Re:Verse reading–John 15:9-17 (day three)

“Love one another.”  Love is the only divine reality that will preserve our lives.  God’s justice, his anger, even his very holiness would destroy us.  But from love comes God’s grace, God’s mercy, the Incarnation, Christ’s substitutionary suffering and death, and our access to God.  Everything else destroys, only love sustains.  This is true in God’s regard of human beings, and it is therefore true in men’s regard of each other.  Of all the ways we can treat each other, only love gives us a future.  Love for one another won’t just make the world more pleasant.  Love for one another will keep each other alive.

Re:Verse reading–John 15:9-17 (day two)

“You did not choose Me but I chose you…” vs. 16a

We often get caught up in the idea that we made a decision to follow Jesus, and that it was at our initiation that prompted our journey to faith. In reality, we would never made this choice had the spirit not been at work in our hearts. Jesus knew us before we knew ourselves. It is as his behest that we have a place at the table of salvation. This makes his sacrificial act of love more beautiful that while we were yet still sinners, Christ died for us. Therefore as we grow in our walk we would be wise to remember that his calling us to him for salvation is not the end of his call on our lives. Does he have other desires and plans for you? Should we lay more things at his feet? Most definitely.

Re:Verse reading–John 15:9-17 (day one)

“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what the Master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”–v 15.

If you have one friend over the course of your years, you are blessed.  Jesus knew.  After three years, and before He died, He used a new description  for the disciples.  Slaves/servants?  OK, but not exactly.  Friends?  Much better!

The basis for friendship is shared life.  Lovers look at each other.  Friends look out on the world with each other.  Eros is face to face.  Philos (friendship) is shoulder to shoulder (C.S. Lewis).

So, Jesus called the disciples His friends because they (now) knew what the Father had told him.  No secrets.  Full disclosure.  They stood together in the same truth.  United. Loyal.

Isn’t this what we all want with the Lord?

Re: Verse reading–John 13:1-17 (day seven)

I almost missed what John was telling us  about Jesus.  Something important.  Something encouraging.  Crisis doesn’t change Christ.

“Having loved His own (in the past), He (now) loved them (in the present)” says v 1.  Hmm. . . not sharks circling, or friends betraying, or death coming changed the Lord.  In stress He stayed constant.

I am not that way.  (Not without His help, at least.)  Left to my self and my flesh,  I can be fickle and self-loyal.  I break promises and change my mind.  Not Jesus!

I wonder what the world would be if He put that same rock-solid loyalty in me?  When people disappointed me, I would still love them.  When they were foolish and proud, when they weren’t fair, my response would rise from His loving heart rather than from selfishness and pride.

Having loved, He still does.  Unchanging.  Loyal.  John remembered this about Jesus.  I want to as well.

Re: Verse reading–John 13:1-17 (day five)

The introduction to Jesus washing the disciples’ feet is mind boggling. Whatever happens next will be important, memorable, and calculated. (knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God,)

Jesus was fully aware of His Authority, His Divinity, and His Future Glory.  So Jesus gives us a remarkable picture of God- a loving servant. Jesus had not forgotten He was God and decided to humble himself.  NO, it was because He knew He was God and determined to act as God.

Re: Verse reading–John 13:1-17 (day four)

This was a turning point in Jesus’ ministry.  The timetable was drawing closer to the cross.  Jesus began a series of teaching aimed specifically at His disciples.  Being fully God, Jesus knew what lay ahead, both for Him and for His disciples.  He set out to prepare them to live out the Gospel.  These lessons were critical for the disciples to learn if they were to accurately and clearly present Jesus’ message to the world.  For Judas, this was a lesson in thinking of others instead of yourself…one last opportunity to repent of his selfish act of betrayal.  (He did not learn the lesson!)  For the rest, it was an act of love and a lesson on service to others.  To love is to serve.  Self-centeredness has no place in love.  Albert Schweitzer once said, “The only ones among you who will be truly happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”  Are you seeking and have you found?

Re: Verse reading–John 13:1-17 (day three) 

“He…began to wash his disciples’ feet.”  Jesus did not perform this act of service as an object lesson in order to show his disciples how to serve, though it surely did accomplish that.  He did not do this in order to put them in a state of awe that their master would be so gracious as to stoop to such a lowly function, though it did strike them with wonder. But here’s why this event occurred the way it did: Jesus saw an opportunity to love them, and he took it. And then he told them: When you see a moment in which you can love one another, seize it.

Re: Verse reading–John 13:1-17 (day two) For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. vs. 15

Bus duty is the worst. In my 15 years in education I never met someone who was excited about bus duty. It takes you away from the classroom where you could be meeting with kids, grading, or really anything but bus duty. The mass of humanity that gathers at the beginning and end of every day is maddening, and you can imagine this is where trouble brews. Nobody volunteers for bus duty, nobody.

Larry was a two-time cancer survivor when I worked for him. It would eventually return and lead to his passing, but when I knew him it was a footnote to his journey. Every morning and every evening of every school day Larry would make sure that each bus arrived and departed on time and with every student. He watched over the masses of students who were waiting for their daily ride home. Monitoring them so they made good choices. Larry did this every day in his suit and tie rain or shine, hot or hotter, Larry was unswerving in his commitment.

Larry had other things to do. He was the head principal of the largest high school in the Northside Independent School district. His energies could certainly have been spent in other places. But everyday Larry sent a clear message to his staff. Larry was there to serve. Those duties that we avoided, he was the first to sign up. He demonstrated leadership by his service, and ultimately service by his leadership.

As a result of his sacrifices teachers across the board were willing to go to the mat for Larry or any of his initiatives. He loved students. He loved teachers. We wanted to please him, and in so doing we wanted to serve. I am so blessed that I had the opportunity to work for a man like Larry Martin. He showed me how to serve well.