#DailyDevotion If You Believe In Jesus, Worship His Image, Your Neighbor
Thursday Easter 4
1 John 3:23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
Joh 6:29 “Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’” Joh 15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Mat 22:37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Mat 22:39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
To believe in Jesus, to trust him is to keep the greatest commandment. It stands in parallel with what Jesus said when asked what was the greatest commandment of the Law of Moses which is to love the Lord your God will all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Indeed one could say it redirects it or better yet defines it. This is because Jesus is the Lord. The Father, God Almighty, has given us the name of Jesus, Jesus to be the object, the person, through which we love God.
To trust Jesus is to keep the first table of the Law. Just as the Israelites were to believe the Lord delivered them from the hands of the Egyptians and Pharaoh, we are to believe Jesus has delivered us from sin, death, and the devil with his mighty outstretched arm, but in the most mysterious way. He delivers us by going to the cross, outstretching his arms and dying. But death and the devil did not defeat him on the cross, in the grave. Jesus rose from the dead defeating them. He offers his victory to us for free. Through trust in his name, his victory is our victory. To trust he did this for us is to abide in him and he in us.
Consequently, because of his great love for us, we are called to love one another. This is also called the second greatest commandment. Why is this the second greatest? Because man, your neighbor, is created in the image and likeness of God. How you treat your neighbor is how you treat God’s image. If you say you love God but show contempt for your neighbor is to lie. John reasons you have not seen God but you have seen your neighbor. God has given him to you so you may serve God through loving his image, your neighbor. Now the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law give some examples of how to love your neighbor. Jesus’ sermon on the mount and the plain tell us also how God expects us to love our neighbor. Because of our love for Jesus because of his great love for us, we then return that love to him but loving the person in front of us, doing for him what he needs as Jesus did for us what we needed.
If Jesus is in us, then we believe in him and abide in him. Because this is so, we love his image, our neighbor.
Heavenly Father, grant us faith in the name of your Son Jesus Christ, that through abiding in him, we may express our love for you by showing love to our neighbor. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.