This Is Love

"I have said these things to you in figures of speech.  The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.  In that day you will ask in My Name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God.  I have come from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father."

His disciples said, "Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!  Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God."  Jesus answered them, "Do you now believe?  Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.  Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.  I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation.  But take heart; I have overcome the world."

Just reading this passage--carefully and slowly--is enough to take my breath away.  I just can barely believe the extent of God's love for me.

God's love is not some cheap, small love like you would get from anybody here on earth.  This love is the love of Jesus, the Man who is God, who lived and died for me.  And it's the love of His Father, who through Jesus is now my Father too.  These two awesome loves, the love of the Father and the love of the Son, both for me, are absolutely astounding.  I can't even scratch the surface of the fringe of the farthest outer corner of the immense expanse of God's love.  But a few little things about it stood out to me from this passage.  Maybe I'm easily amazed.  But my God is easy to be amazed at.

Jesus gives us the reason here for God's amazing love. The reason is this--"because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God."  Did the disciples love Jesus, and believe that He had come from God?  Well, yes—and so do I.  But looking back just a little bit, you will find that this did not come naturally, either to the disciples or to me.  Everyone who has ever been saved has been a liar, a complainer, and an ungrateful, lustful, rebellious sinner.  We are people who choose our own perceived glory and short-lived, measly pleasures over God 10 times out of 10.  Believing in Jesus, and loving Jesus, the light that shows our darkness in all its ugliness, is something we would never, ever do.  No, our belief and our love for God are themselves gifts from God.  He is the one who makes our hearts live, and love, and have faith for the first time.  So the reasons that God loves us--our belief in Jesus, and love for Him--are reasons that would not exist unless they had been given by God.

We never deserved God's love, period. The fact that we are saved is absolutely mind-boggling. But here's the clincher. Now, even now, as we daily experience God's grace and love and abundant blessings, He knows that we will still fail Him! Jesus said to His disciples, “Do you now believe? The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will...leave me alone.” In the face of ultimate suffering, Jesus would be abandoned by the men he had been devoted to for years. They would leave, scatter, hide, even deny ever knowing the One who had showed them a love beyond any other. Yet after this prediction of His disciples future failings, Jesus did not give a condemnation or a prediction of a punishment to match the sin. Instead, we read these beautiful words:

“Yet I am not alone,

for the Father is with me.

I have said these things to you,

that in Me

you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart;

I have

overcome

the world.”

We all fail Jesus. I do it many times a day, and times untold in a week. We are as bad or worse than the disciples on their worst day. But in all this we know that, just like Jesus, we are not alone. The Father who loves us and saved us, is with us, even when we try to leave Him. To those who will forsake Him, Jesus gives a message of peace. And this is a promise I can claim for my own. I do not need to worry about what failings tomorrow will bring. In my Father, who bought my salvation with the price of His own Son, I have the confidence of a love that could never leave me. And in my Savior, who has overcome the world, I have a peace that truly goes far beyond anything I can understand.