Week 8 | Bound by Love

A PRAYER TO START

Wherever you find yourself in this moment, you will find that you are squarely in the lavished love of our Savior. May you come to rest and rise to live in this love. Pray with John Ballie then…

Almighty and eternal Father,

You are hidden from my sight;

You are beyond the understanding of my mind;

Your thoughts are not like my thoughts;

Your ways are past finding out.

 

Yet you have breathed your Spirit into my spirit;

You have formed my mind to seek you;

You have turned my heart to love you;

You have made me restless for the rest that can be found in you;

You have planted within me a hunger and a thirst that make me long for the eternal satisfaction of heaven.

 

O Father, I praise your name because you have imprinted a seal on my inner being, not leaving me to my own poor and petty ways, or to be ruled by my passions and desires, but calling me to be an heir to your eternal kingdom! Bless you, Lord, for knocking on my heart’s door and reminding me of your presence. Bless you, Father, for your hand upon my life and for the sure knowledge that however I may falter and fail, your everlasting arms are always underneath me.

 

 

GETTING THOUGHTFUL  

Romans 12:9 marks Paul’s transition from describing the body generally to describing what the body does specifically, and he begins with, “Let love be genuine…” What love is Paul referencing?

If you look back over the previous verses, it is not difficult to discern that the love Paul mentions is the same love he expounds on in Colossians 3, where he is writing once more on the unity between those who are in Christ,

Put on the, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

 

We share the love of Christ for us. He died so that both you and I and our neighbors might know the Father in the manner we once did before the great rebellion. We share too in our love for the Christ, for Jesus himself and his life lived and given up so that our sacrifice might not be one that extinguishes life but is indeed “living”. We are all loved by Christ, and many of us reciprocate that love for the one who first loved us. And, we share a love for those others who have received the same love which we possess. It is this love that Paul exhorts us to keep genuine, neither coerced nor faked. It is this love that we put on like clothing of our first parents that binds us together in Kingdom living.

 

REFLECTION

During his final meal with his disciples, Jesus gives them a “new commandment”, one meant to direct them in their life together in the Spirit after his work on earth was done. Jesus said,

A new commandment I give you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35)

 

Jesus would go on to explain that his friends’ obedience to this command would be the determining factor in their faith’s fruitfulness (John 15:1-17). It seems that genuine love is primary to any ideals of community or any insights into our own make up. What binds us together as one body in Christ is indeed, love shared.

Use the questions below to help you prayerfully reflect individually and/or discuss as a DNA group.

  • Describe the genuine love of Jesus towards both his disciples and those who did not reciprocate his affections in the gospel stories.

 

  • Describe what love looks like as defined by our culture from your perspective.



  • In what way(s) does your love reflect the love of Christ, and in what way(s) does it reflect the love of this age?

 

  • Read John 15:1-17 and describe what you need to do this week “that you joy may be full”.

 

 

REVERBERATIONS

In John’s gospel, Jesus exhorts us to abide in his word and in his love by keeping his commandments. Many of us have read these words and attempted to figure out how to get inside his abode, all the while missing that we are already home in Christ. We are being invited to stay there. Let these words reflect off the walls of your mind, the chamber of your heart, and the actions of your hands this week.

 

Experience has taught the race that if knowledge of God is the end, then these habits of life are not the means but the condition in which the means operate. You do not have to do these things; not at all…unless you want to know God. They work on you, not on him.

(Annie Dillard)