Lesson 51 Warring Against the Flesh: Remaining in Jesus’ Love
Questions 5 and 6
Jesus here points forward to His death, as the highest expression of His love. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends!”
Do you know that Jesus went to the cross because He loves you? I mean, have you given this serious consideration? This is precisely what Jesus is teaching in this passage. At the cross, He demonstrated His love for you as He took your sins away and died to pay the penalty of your sin. At the cross, He showed His love for you as He stepped in front of God’s wrath, as your Substitute, and died in your place. Indeed, no one has ever loved you more than Jesus, which He proved by laying down His life for you.
And this love is personal; it has your name on it. It’s as personal as if you had fallen on a train track and couldn’t get up, and Jesus ran to you, picked you up and shoved you out of the way, but the train hit Him so that He died in rescuing you. That’s personal. It’s for you, and that’s how it should be understood.
And this is how we are to love others (1 John 3:16). One of the greatest places to begin loving like this is in our own homes:
Ephesians 5:25-26 NIV Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (26) to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word.
Question 5. If you are a husband studying with us, do you see that Jesus’ love for you on the cross is to translate over to your love for your wife? If you are unmarried or a female, please select N/A.
This is how we know we have come to live in Jesus’ love when we begin to share it with others. His love flows through us and spills over to other people. It is the first fruit of remaining in Christ, of abiding in His love, of staying in His Word and prayer, of living in communion with Him.
John 15:14-15 NIV You are my friends if you do what I command. (15) I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.