‘Whoever has the Son has life’ - February 23
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 119:145-176; PM Psalm 128, 129, 130; Prov. 6:1-19; 1 John 5:1-12; John 11:45-54
Today’s Reflection
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. … And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 1 John 5: 1, 11-12
While we have an extensive canon of Holy Scriptures (66 different books) and all the volumes and treatises on theology written down through the centuries, when it comes down to it, all that we must believe as Christians is quite simple: We are to believe that the God who created all, the God who was and is and is to come, that God loves us. And how do we know that God loves us—because God became incarnate, which means he took on flesh and became a human being. And God did not just take on the physicality of a human being, God took on everything that it means to be human for 33 years.
Why? Because God wants to be with us. God doesn’t want to be alone—that’s why he made the world and all that is in it. God made us humans because he wants to be with us—and he wants us to be with him. And that relationship, that longing of God to be with us and for us to be with God, is what eternal life and love are. God is with us—and us with God. This is what all our faith in God, our faith as followers of Christ, is all about.
How do we express this “with-ness” in our daily lives? If we have the Son and thus have life, then we are to live this through love of God, love of neighbor, love of creation, and love of ourselves (because God made us for love). If we believe in Christ, the Messiah who came to live and die as one of us, then this belief bears itself out through living in such a way that our love for God overflows through all the interactions and relationships of our lives—it cannot be contained, and it cannot run out. Thanks be to God!
Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
How do you experience the love of God in your interactions and relationships with other people? How do others experience the love of God through you?
Daily Challenge
Take 15 minutes in silence today, whether sitting still or walking or running, and focus your mind and heart on nothing more than this: “whoever has the Son has life.” Repeat it. Sit with it. Meditate on it.