Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)
Today’s scripture says that Jesus loved his disciples “to the end.” This means that there would never be any end, any lessening, any withdrawing, or any dampening to the love He had for them.
Today’s scripture also suggests this: How Jesus felt about them, He feels about us. Just as there would never be an end to His love for them, so there will never be an end to His love for us.
The question isn’t how Jesus feels about us. The question is, how are we going to respond to how Jesus feels about us.
Many of us don’t really trust Jesus’s love. The way we show our distrust is to act like we need to earn it or to think we can lose it through something we do or don’t do. Neither is true. Both are false. We can’t earn or merit Jesus’ love—it just is. Nor can we lose or destroy it—it just is.
Here are our choices: We can accept Jesus’ love, trust it, and build our lives upon it, or we can mistrust it, which is the same as rejecting it. What’s our choice?
If we want a full life, the kind of life God created us to have, there’s only one choice, and that’s to accept that God the Father sent Jesus to show us just how much we’re loved.
Regardless of all of our acting out, regardless of all the ways we run away from God, reject God, try to create our own gods, and even denounce God, God’s heart and mind aren’t changed. We aren’t in charge of God’s heart—thank God. We’re only in charge of our own.
I encourage us to meditate upon today’s scripture. Jesus loved those disciples then, and He loves us now “to the end,” which means totally, utterly, completely, eternally, perfectly.
Reflection Questions:
- Do you really trust that Jesus loves you “to the end?”
- If so, how did you come to that trust? If not, how do you show your mistrust?
- When I trust that Jesus loves me, my life goes very differently than when I feel like I need to earn His love. When I simply trust in His love, I know joy and peace. When I don’t, I feel anxious and worried. How is your life different when you trust in Jesus’ love from when you don’t?