Weekly Bible Message in a time of HIV
Celebrates Twenty Years of Equipping and supporting faith communities!
A message for the week starting on Sunday 9 May 2021
Lectionary Week: Sixth Week after Easter
Prescribed Texts: Acts 10:44-48, Psalm 98, 1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17
Selected text: John 15: 9-17
Intimately at home
We probably do not need a dictionary to spell out what the word “home” means. Yet when we think of the word it might evoke many different pictures, memories, and feelings in each of us.
I am mindful that these pictures and memories are not always pleasant and perhaps right now you may feel that you do not have a place you can call “home”. But hopefully we can all identify with the desire to have a place where we feel safe, loved and at home.
In our text we are invited into such a space:
In John 15: 9-10 Jesus says:
“I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That is what I’ve done – kept my Father’s commandments and made myself at home in His love”. The Message
How many times have you been invited into someone’s home or space with these words: “Make yourselves at home?” Sometimes one feels instantly at home, but it is not always the case. I often need some time to orientate myself in a new environment, especially if I do not know the people around me. Today we are invited into God’s love and invited to make ourselves at home in this space.
In the Revised Standard Version verse 10 reads: “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.
What are these commandments?
John 15: 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The Living New Testament states it even stronger: “I demand that you love each other as much as I love you.”
“Make yourselves at home in my love.”
“Abide in My love.”
“I demand that you love each other.”
“You’ll remain intimately at home.”
At home in God’s love.
This is a place where we not only feel safe, loved and at home, but a space that demands that we ourselves will also be safe spaces for one another.
To think about: What can you and I do to help create safe spaces for vulnerable and marginalised people?
Author: Aneleh Fourie Le Roux, CABSA Director, Trainer and Churches, Channels of Hope Facilitator.