Daily Worship

Discipleship has a cost - Love

Norah Summers April 03, 2014 0 0

John 15: 10-18

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. The greatest love you can have for your friends is to give your life for them. And you are my friends if you do what I command you.  I do not call you servants any longer, because servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I heard from my Father.  You did not choose me; I chose you and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures. And so the Father will give you whatever you ask of him in my name. This, then, is what I command you: love one another.

The World's Hatred

“If the world hates you, just remember that it has hated me first.

God of love,

we look at our own attempts to love as we ought,
and see how far we fall short.

Would I actually lay down my life for someone else?

We hear and read of brave people 
who have risked life and limb
to help or save others,

and we wonder – 
could I do that?

Would I do it without thinking?

Or would I calmly weigh up the dangers,
and make a rational decision
that I should try anyway?

Most of us will never have to make that decision –

yet in our daily interactions
there are people who irritate us,
events we feel we can’t control,
unreasonable demands we can’t satisfy -

It is often difficult to be loving,

to make time to visit someone in hospital,
have a coffee with an lonely person,
give more than just a token amount to a charity appeal –

make an effort to get on with an awkward colleague,
phone the cousin who was so unpleasant fifteen years ago,
apologise to the friend who got a snippy answer to an innocent question.

These seem like trivial concerns,
but they are just the stuff of everyday life, 
in which we have to find our way 
of following you in love.

It is not for most of us to make grand gestures,
face lions,
become hermits –

but even loving our neighbour is often really hard work.

So may we not offer you
sacrifices which have cost us nothing.

 

Norah Summers
Falkirk Trinity Church