PHILEO

Today's devotional covered one of my favorite passages- John 15:9-17
In eight verses, Christ mentions the word "love" a total of nine times! He says that he has loved us just as the Father has loved him and he commands us to love each other with that same love. God has this crazy, incomprehensible pure love for everyone on earth and he displayed that unconditional and unmerited love, THAT AGAPE LOVE, through Christ. And that's just the beginning! Through Christ, God offers another kind of love, PHILEO, a very personal kind of love.

Yes, He loves me! He loves me enough to die but He died so that we might love Him and each other in a new way, in an intimate way!

Jesus never held anything back from his disciples and he even says, "Now you are my FRIENDS since I have told you everything..." This is the kind of love we are to share with those closest to us. Right off the bat, God calls us to love EVERYONE, as unconditionally as he loves us (verse 12). That's Agape. But then he says, and this is my favorite verse of the whole passage, " THE GREATEST LOVE IS SHOWN WHEN PEOPLE LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES FOR THEIR FRIENDS". That's Phileo.

The meaning of this verse is two-fold:
(1) Observation- Jesus is hinting at his death and what he is going to do for all of us. He says "this is what I'm going to do for you because I love you and I'm asking you to love each other in the same way and I would never ask you to do anything I already haven't done first"
(2) Application- What does Jesus mean by "lay down your lives"? Does he mean he literally wants us to die? NO! But he does want us to die to ourselves. To set aside our emotions, our entitlement, our desires, our own plans, our EVERYTHING! for HIM and for those that around us.

He wants us to be personal and real. VULNERABLE! SACRIFICIAL!
He doesn't want us to hold anything back!
To love all as He loves all but especially to love those around us and to be present with them as he is present with us.

That's what this all about! :)