6th Sunday of Easter, Year C
Jesus said to his disciples in today’s gospel reading: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; yet the word you hear is not mine but that of the Father who sent me.” From these words of Jesus we can infer that loving Him entails keeping His word. So my dear friends in Christ ask yourself today, do I truly love God, and do I really keep His word?
To better understand and answer this question, we need to know what it means to love God. Loving God means to totally give ourselves over to Him, that is to surrender, to relinquish, and to abandon ourselves to Him, regardless of how we feel, what we think, or what we desire. In fact, Loving God means to set aside our life, so that His life can come forth from our hearts. This is exactly what the apostles and disciples of Christ did in the Acts of the Apostles to bring us the gospel today. Have you truly given yourself to God? Have you truly surrendered yourself to Him? Have you abandoned and relinquished everything for His sake?
Since we now know what loving God means, then we need to ask ourselves this question, “why do I have to love God? We have to love God because: (1) He loved us first as 1 John chapter 4, verse 19 teaches us. (2) We have to love God because: He sacrificed His only begotten Jesus for us as we are taught in John chapter 3, verse 16. (3) We have to love God because: Through Christ’s blood we are saved and redeemed as 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 18 to 19 states. (4) We have to love God because: He always welcomes us, never judges, rejects or condemns us as St. Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8, verse 1. (5) We have to love God because: He forgives us our sins and His mercy endures forever, as we are reminded in 1 John chapter 1, verse 9. (6) We have to love God because: He never forsakes or abandons us, as we are told in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 5. (7) We have to love God because: He cares and provides for us states St. Paul in Philippians chapter 4, verse 19. (8) Lastly, in 1 John chapter 4, verse 4 to 12 we are reminded that we have to love God because we are His children, we belong to Him, and we are His own.
My dear friends, now you know why we have to love God, so how do we show our love for God or how can we totally give ourselves to Him? We can show our love to God and totally give ourselves to Him by praising and thanking Him; by praying to Him; by being obedient to His words; by reading His word (the Bible); by loving ourselves like He loves us; by loving our neighbor as ourselves; by serving and being charitable to others; by fasting; and by surrendering our lives to Him.
So my brothers and sisters in Christ, as Jesus told us in today’s gospel reading that “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him,” let us love Him all the more by listening to His word; by accepting His word and by keeping His word.
