Readings: Acts 15:22-31, Ps. 57:8-12, John 15:12-17
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)
Every friendship requires work. To a large extent, friendship is conditional. Even from our human experience, there are specific unwritten requirements on both sides to be friends with a person and remain so. When these requirements are not met, the friendship suffers. Today, Jesus tells us: “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
While God’s love is constant, utterly independent of our actions, our love for God is reflected in our daily choices. God never stops loving us. He leaves the ninety-nine in search of the lost one. However, if that one sheep refuses to return with the shepherd after he has found it, God does not force it.
It is one thing to call a person your friend, but a different thing for them to recognise you as their friend. God considers us His friends, but how many of us relate to God as His true friends? In other words, how many of us are faithful to God’s commandments? How many of us love others as much as God loves us?
What does it mean to love one another as God has loved us? It means that we pour ourselves out for the good of our fellow brothers and sisters. To love like God is to be a Prodigal Father ready to forgive as many as seventy-seven times seven times.
In today’s first reading, the apostles sent a delegation to the church in Antioch, that is, the Gentile converts with this instruction: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” (Acts 15:28-29)
In other words, the apostles made it clear to the Gentiles that for them to maintain friendship with God, certain things are necessary, such as abstinence from idolatry. We cannot serve both God and mammon. We cannot be friends with God and still maintain idolatrous practices such as the strangulation of animals, drinking the blood of animals, or engaging in acts of unchastity.
Let us pray: Almighty, ever-living God, teach us to love one another as you do and remain your friend forever so that we may bear fruit for you. We ask this through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith. It is well with you. May God’s abundant blessings be upon us all. (Friday of the 5th week of Eastertide, Liturgical Colour: White. Bible Study: Acts 15:22-31, Ps. 57:8-12, John 15:12-17).
@Rev. Fr. Evaristus E. Abu