John 15:9-17 (NRSV)
Read John 15:9-17 on biblegateway.com
Verse 9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. Verse 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Verse 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. Verse 12"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Verse 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. Verse 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. Verse 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. Verse 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. Verse 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Devotion
Once I was a chaplain at a facility for the treatment of persons with severe and persistent mental illness. One day a man was sitting alone on a curb in front of the building where he had lived for a long time. I joined him. As we sat there talking—he waiting for transportation to his group home, me keeping him company—he grew pensive. "You know, I owe that Dr. D___ my life. He kept trying and trying and he found a combination of drugs that gave me back my life." Here was a person painfully aware of the fragile nature of health, that life is not to be taken for granted. The conversation was brief, but his gratitude was palpable. I sensed that, even if it had been a while, he was no stranger to a thankful heart, and that he was the richer for it.
Prayer
Dear Lord, as you, by sheer grace, have given your love to us and to the world around in which we find ourselves, we pray we may respond to that love with those we meet, however they may be. Amen.