TIL DEATH DO WE PART...AND BEYOND

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

John 13:1

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

It isn’t a subject we like to talk about, even though it is one of those inevitable parts of life.

What is the subject?

It’s death.

As sure as we have life because I am writing this and later you are reading it, so too is it a certainty that one day this life will end in death.

This is why Jesus spent so much time and energy encouraging His followers to not get attached to the world’s things and its ways. For there will be a day when you will no longer have life in this world and on the day of your death, every worldly possession you have is going to be left behind. Others will end up with what you have.

In lieu of this fixation with the world, Jesus proposed an alternative. To store up treasure in heaven, treasures that would never spoil or perish; treasures that no thief could ever steal.

I believe one of the treasures Jesus was talking about was the matter of love, and not just any love, but the kind of love that Jesus had for others, a love that would lead a person to be willing to give up their life if another’s could be spared.

In a future devotion, we will examine Jesus’ call to love a little closer as we study from chapter 14 of John’s gospel but essentially He tells His disciples that there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for their friends. And then He adds that whoever believes in Him is counted as a friend, and where could we ever find a better close companion that our blessed Savior. As the old hymn proclaims, “What a friend we have in Jesus!”

Well, as we see in our passage from John 13, the scene was just before the annual Passover celebration in Jerusalem and Jesus fully knew that death was knocking on His door. In fact, the food He ate at the Passover meal would not yet be settled before He would be arrested in Gethsemane’s garden, taken before the Sanhedrin to be falsely accused and convicted, brutally beaten, and then crucified, dying a criminal’s death in what was and still is the most incredible act of injustice in history.

All this was coming and Jesus knew it.

Put yourself in His place for a minute. What would be going through your mind? Would it be on yourself and the pending agonistic suffering that loomed on the horizon?

I think it would take a special kind of person NOT to be focused on that. But then again, Jesus was the most special person who ever walked this planet.

For as we see in a single verse, the opening verse of John 13, Jesus was focused fully on love, not love of Himself because He was clearly not a narcissist. If He was, He surely would have looked for any way possible to ensure self preservation. But Jesus’ love was that pure love. It was agape love and He willingly gave up His life so that others could be pardoned from their sin and live with Him forever.

In other words, when we marry ourselves to Jesus and commit ourselves to Him, death isn’t the end but rather just see you later. All because Jesus chose to love His own who were in the world and even the cross couldn’t take that love away for Jesus loved all people, the people He came to die for and save, until the very end.

That same Jesus is alive and well today, sitting in authority over all things in heaven and on earth, and still as much in love with His own as He was when He walked the earth. Through Him, we get to love now, to love Him and love others through Him, and to do it to the end. Then we get to live in perfect love forever, abiding with our Savior and the God who sent Him to save us.

In other words, when we consider the matter of love as Christians, it’s always a ‘til death do we part” proposition, but then a glorious love extension kicks in, one that goes on infinitely. Friends, is this not good news for us as we walk the path toward dying in life. If you are in Christ, death no longer holds any sting for when this life is over, the best is still yet to come and you will experience the best forever.

Thanks be to God for the incredible gift of love found in His Son Jesus.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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Send any prayer requests to Gods4all@aol.com