Prayer Cross at Clergy Family Retreat
John 15:9-17 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Chosen to love is how we may sum up this passage; yet, if we do not love, what have we been chosen for? And making this even harder, Jesus is asking us to love everybody! Not just the ones who love us, or look like us, or dress like or even talk like us: Everybody! It is how we're known as Christians; by our love. Jesus stresses the importance of keeping commandments and makes this a new commandment, that we love one another. A love that bears fruit, that is to say, love that produces more who love because they have seen love in us. Which begs the question, what do people see in us if we do not have love?
PRAYER: Loving Lord, I want to be all about love; may love be seen in me, and may the love in me bear fruit of new people who love. This I pray in Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
Have a great and blessed day in the Lord!
Eradio Valverde
