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Will your last words be famous?
Will your last words be famous?
April 27, 2016
John 15:12-13
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.   Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
New International Version (NIV)
               Will your last words be famous?  Joseph Wright was a linguist who edited the English Dialect Dictionary. His last word? “Dictionary.”  Italian artist Raphael’s last word was simply: “Happy.”  If you knew you had just a little time left what would you say? 
                Jesus spoke to his disciples at length on the night before his crucifixion.  He told them not to be troubled but to trust in God. Then he promised them the Holy Spirit as a Comforter.  John tells us Jesus also spoke of love.  Jesus desired for his disciples to love each other as he had loved them.  Then he defined love as the sacrifice of laying down one’s life.   Then he demonstrated that love by dying for his disciples.
                We are indebted to John for giving us the last words Jesus spoke before he was crucified.  Jesus’ death on the cross accomplished so many things:  it fulfilled the Father’s will and paid our ransom.  Jesus died a substitutionary death so that we would not have to die.  Best of all, Jesus’ death tells us that God so loved us that he gave up everything so that we might live by believing in him.
Pray with me: 
Father, we thank you for Jesus’ definition and demonstration of love for us.  In gratitude for his sacrificial death, help us to live today and every day as friends of Jesus, obeying you from the heart.  Teach us to not only receive your love but to reenact it by loving others and forgiving.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.
Scripture reading for today: 
John 15

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