Today in our world it is the day called Valentines Day.  Many will show their love with candy, flowers, a fine meal, and other demonstrations of affection, placing attention on the one loved while hoping for the same ways of love to be returned.  There will also be discontentment because of the great expectations of some with the words, “If you really loved me, you would give me, ____.  You can fill in the blank. The day will end with smiles or frowns depending on how love was expressed according to our human judgement of what love is.  Is this really love at all?

The world’s advertised way to love is not perfect and is very unreliable.  This kind of love keeps score, makes lists of wrongs and holds it against others forever.  This love produces grudges, hot tempers when we don’t get our own way, and can become loud and arrogantly obnoxious.  This love expects the best while giving back the least.  This kind of love expects reward and payback and is conditional on the response of others.  When this kind of love fails us, and it will, it shakes us to the core, rattles our sense of being, and rolls us into dead-end thinking and living. 

“Is this all there is…”; “I wanna know what love is…” are passages of love songs by those who long to be loved.

Our attempts to love are most often the opposite of God’s love for us who gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17  Only Jesus saves us but we are commanded to love like He loves us.

In this passage, Jesus will fulfill the mission God sent Him to complete in a few hours.  Because of His great love for his disciples, He goes over what love really is a few more times.  His words are meant to soothe and comfort even though He is about to go through the most excruciating pain no human should bear.  His words; “Don’t let this rattle you.”  “Trust Me.”  “I am the Way, Truth, and Life.”  “I’m coming back.” “In the meantime, the Spirit of Truth will be with you always” are meant to teach and challenge his beloved to love like He loves them.  It is written by John “so that we might believe”, too.

John 14, The Message

The Road

^1-4 “Don’t let this rattle you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”

⁵ Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”

^6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”

⁸ Philip said, “Master, show us the Father; then we’ll be content.”

^9-10 “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. I don’t just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.

^11-14 “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.

The Spirit of Truth

^15-17 “If you love me, show it by doing what I’ve told you. I will talk to the Father, and he’ll provide you another Friend so that you will always have someone with you. This Friend is the Spirit of Truth. The godless world can’t take him in because it doesn’t have eyes to see him, doesn’t know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you, and will even be in you!

^18-20 “I will not leave you orphaned. I’m coming back. In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you’re going to see me because I am alive and you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.

²¹ “The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.”

²² Judas (not Iscariot) said, “Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not to the world?”

^23-24 “Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and my Father will love him—we’ll move right into the neighborhood! Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you are hearing isn’t mine. It’s the message of the Father who sent me.

^25-27 “I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you. The Friend, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I’m leaving you well and whole. That’s my parting gift to you. Peace. I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left—feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset. Don’t be distraught.

²⁸ “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.

^29-31 “I’ve told you this ahead of time, before it happens, so that when it does happen, the confirmation will deepen your belief in me. I’ll not be talking with you much more like this because the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me. But so the world might know how thoroughly I love the Father, I am carrying out my Father’s instructions right down to the last detail.

“Get up. Let’s go. It’s time to leave here.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

What kind of love is this?  It is the relentless, unconditional, unfailing, overwhelming love of God who loved us so much He sent a part of Himself to earth to die for our sins so that we would not perish but instead have eternal life with Him forever. So, this is what love is.  God wants us to love Him back.  That’s what His Word, chapter by chapter, story by story, one glorious miracle after another has been trying to convey…God loves us and wants to be in relationship with us. We love Him because HE FIRST loved us.  (1 John 4:19)  We cannot earn His love because we can be easily boastful and full of pride.  For this reason, also, we do not perform great acts of goodness so that He will love us better than someone else.  (Ephesians 2:9)

God loves “the world.”  He created all, knows all, and longs for us to love like He loves us.  Whoever believes will not perish.  Whoever loves Him back desires to do what He says knowing that His love is perfect and that God provides what is best for us.  We don’t choose who to love, God clarifies: Love others like I love you.

Jesus prepares hearts for what happens before it happens by His Spirit living in us.  That’s the kind of love and help He provides for believers.  So, don’t be rattled.  Don’t be upset or distraught when challenging events test our faith.  Don’t be worried—even by the attacks of evil against us!  Trust Jesus.

“…the chief of this godless world is about to attack. But don’t worry—he has nothing on me, no claim on me.”  Wow! 

What blessed assurance for all who believe and follow Jesus!  Once we believe in Jesus, the evil one has no claim on us either!  My heart is lifted just reading and taking this “no claim” inclusion in my contract of commitment to my Savior and Lord of my life!

Paul explains to all believers who were struggling with how to love like Jesus with these words;

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

God demonstrated His perfect love by sending His Son die for our sins so that we would not perish but have life forever with Him.  And He’s got a place, prepared and ready for each one of us who believe in Jesus and love Him back!  He is coming back, you know…

Lord,

Thank you for loving us like you do while showing the best way to love you back and to love each other.  I love you with all that is in me.  I am eternally grateful for your love!

In Jesus Name, Amen