I just got through my first quarter
of SBS and am about to begin my second quarter, starting Monday, and the 24th!
Honestly, it was amazing, REALLY intense, and I have never been more busy in my
entire life, nor do I see the possibility of being more busy later down the
road, but the evidence of God’s grace keeps me going. Even during the days I
feel like I can’t possibly contain any more in my head, and my body is going to
quit… He doesn’t let me! Haha.
One thing I have been thinking
about, since finishing the book of John, is the love of God. John the Apostle
wrote John and referred to himself in the book as “The disciple whom Jesus
loved”. Whether John was trying to write with some anonymity or was writing
properly in third person, this is the title he chose to give himself.
As we studied John, it was clear
that John didn’t do this out of pride. He did this because he was convinced of
the love of Jesus. John would have been really young when he walked with Jesus
and the disciples, probably in his early teenage years, and most likely penned
this letter towards the end of his life. In reading John, it kind of sounds
like an old man, reminiscing about the times he had when he walked with
Jesus. At this point, he had outlived
all the other disciples. Peter was martyred and also his brother James in Acts, and John was around when all of the others died and wasn’t successfully martyred
himself. In Ephesus, he was sentenced to being boiled in oil until he died but miraculously, he wasn’t hurt. As I have been learning about John’s life, it was so evident that
his account, his story of Jesus, was so necessary to be written for Christians
to read. I believe God kept him alive so that we would learn from him what he
deemed important to write after decades of looking back on his time with Jesus.
And his title was the greatest thing that has caught my attention. “The
disciple whom Jesus loved.”
All of this led up to a thought
that I have been working through since reading John. “What would it look like if we were fully convinced that we were completely loved by Jesus?” Of course,
many of us know this. It is famously said by Christians to try to express why
someone should turn to Jesus, “Jesus loves you.” But, if I may ask, do you
fully understand this, and if so, do you fully live like you do? I can’t say
that everything I do is out of this conviction.
If I completely got it… Or more practically, if I was more convinced of the
love of Jesus than anything else, my life would look radically different than I
think it looks now.
I would be completely unhindered in friendships. It wouldn’t
matter what people thought of me because I would know the opinion that is of
greater importance… I wouldn’t second-guess myself… If I felt that I was being
compelled by the Lord to do something, like pray for someone, share the gospel,
give a word, I would just do it without hesitation because my hesitation mostly
comes from the thought “What if that is not the Lord? What if I mess up?” These
questions come from fear, and if I understood love, then fear would be
discredited.
Would focusing on gaining this understanding actually give
empowerment to live as God calls us to? Meaning, would we be more capable of
achieving what he has promised we will do because we trust his perfect love
more than our ability to do those things or to fail in doing those things? I
don’t know if these questions are just specific to myself, or if they are
ambiguous, but I would find it hard to believe that anyone, following the Lord
doesn’t have the conversations with God that sound like, “Yes God, I want to do
that, but how?”
The love of Jesus is empowering. It is the ridiculous gift
of God that makes people step out in crazy things. It is what John preached again and again when
he was given opportunity to preach at the end of his life. If he found it one
of the most central points of the gospel, it is important enough for me to try
and figure out with whatever it is I do with my life.
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