Why Jesus?…

In his own words (part 6)

It was the Father’s wish that Jesus choose some disciples and love them. Because in loving them they would love each other, and loving each other would be the best clue of all for clearly identifying them as his disciples.

It’s one of the great secrets of heaven that the Father sent Jesus to tell us – which is what Jesus does in John 15. 

In verse 9, Jesus got the secret rolling around in his disciples’ heads when he told them, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”  Two points here: that, first of all, Jesus knew the Father loved him. He knew what the Father’s love was like, and to him it was the most wonderful thing of all. What could top his Father’s love? What greater thing was there in all creation and beyond into eternity than being loved by the Father? And Jesus is saying he knew this love intimately. 

Which is amazing when applied to the second part of that verse, because Jesus then says he loves his disciples with the same love his Father has for him. So not only does he know the Father’s love personally, he’s also capable of expressing his Father’s love to his disciples too.

So the Father is getting his heavenly ball of love rolling on this planet through Jesus loving as he loves and expressing that love to his disciples. They were the next in line, then, to be caught up in this rolling ball of love that had come trundling out from heaven in the person of Jesus.  

At which point Jesus then says to his disciples, in the last part of verse 9, “Now remain in my love” – or “Never lose sight of knowing I love you.” Because his love for them and knowing what his love was like, were the most wonderful things of all that could happen to them too. And not only in them knowing and experiencing his love, but also in being able to express his love as well – just as Jesus knew and experienced his Father’s love and was able to express it too.  

The Father’s love, therefore, was spreading – first through Jesus knowing and expressing his Father’s love, and now through the disciples knowing and experiencing Jesus’ love and being able to express that love of his to each other now as well. The ball of heavenly love was well and truly rolling…(continues Monday)