Friendsfeatured

As we have moved through this season of Lent, I have been thinking about God’s mercy. Mercy flows out of love and the events of Good Friday are a vivid reminder the extent of God’s love and mercy. On that day Jesus bore a punishment that he didn’t deserve, so that you and I don’t receive the punishment we deserve.

During his last meal with his disciples, Jesus not only foretold the events of the next days, but he also taught his disciples a few things about love and mercy.  In John 14, Jesus tells the disciples that if they love him, they will obey him. Jesus repeated that message three times – that means it is important!  In John 15:9-10 again Jesus speaks about love, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”  In verses 13 and 14, Jesus gets really specific about love: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.” Jesus put his love and mercy into action the next day as he willingly sacrificed his life on the cross.

I love the concept of being friends with Jesus. However, the idea of sacrificing my life for my friend Jesus (or any other friend) is more than a little unsettling. Fortunately, the Bible gives us more than ample guidance on how to lay down our lives for our friends. This is just a small sample:

• “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship (Romans 12:1).”
• “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others (Philippians 2:3-4).”
• “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Colossians 3:12-13).”

Laying down my life calls for me to live a life of loving others like Jesus loves me. It is a life of obedience, humility, compassion, patience and forgiveness. It requires mercy because some of the people I encounter don’t necessarily deserve those things!  But then, I don’t deserve them either! It requires sacrificing my own agenda, priorities, and self-centered wants – sigh.

It is not surprising that in John 14, while Jesus is reminding his disciples to love and obey him, he also promises them some help:

• “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” (v. 16-17)
• “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (v. 26)

Jesus asks us to obediently let God’s love and mercy flow through us to all those we encounter (aka friends). I need lots of help from the Holy Spirit to even begin accomplishing this. I hope this painting “Mercy Flows” will be a reminder that my friend Jesus wants me to lay down my life for his friends. After all, he laid down his life for me. I pray that through the power of the Holy Spirit each day more and more of Jesus’s love and mercy will flow through you and me. Amen.