No Greater Love

By C. J. Refsland on April 1, 2021

This year we need Easter/Resurrection Day more than ever. Today is the day we remember Christ as He celebrated Passover with His disciples. What would be His last Passover celebration on earth. As he broke bread and wine he even said “I will not drink of the fruit of the vine anymore until we meet in my Father’s house.” As he gave the first sacrament of His new Covenant as our Passover Lamb, He gave us remembrance of his blood and body.
If you want the truest meaning of the last day Christ spent with His disciples read the account in John chapters 13-18. These chapters have so much of our Lord as He instructed His disciples for the last time. He knew one of them would betray him, he knew Peter would deny Him, and he taught them about His love for them. He humbled himself to wash their feet. Showing them that a master is no better than His servants. He explained to them they wouldn’t see him again on Earth in the flesh. My favorite is when He prayed for His disciples and all believers to come. He promised the Holy Spirit to guide us into truth.
He went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray to the Father. He prayed so fervently blood dripped from His head. He prayed for God’s will to be done. He knew the torture and death He faced and still prayed for God’s will. One thing that resonates still today. While He was praying the disciples fell asleep. And when Christ had finished His prayers he found them asleep and He said to them “Could you not wait with me one hour?”
I can hear Him say that to His church that is asleep today when we need them most. “Can you not wait one hour?”
Christ was not murdered as some say. He laid down His life freely. He could have called 10,000 angels and destroyed those who came after Him that night. But He didn’t. He went with the Father’s plan to send His Son as a sacrificial lamb to save all those who believe. Thank you Father. I have seen a great awakening over our Country this past few months. Everyday I see someone announce on social media that they have given their life to Christ. In the midst of hate and darkness Christ is still calling people to come to him. This is our Holy Time to Honor our King, to know without a doubt He is returning. And we will win for we will reign with Him for eternity. Please take time to read those chapters in John these next few days and Thank God the Father for sending His only Son to save us. I leave you with Christ’s prayer for us on His last Passover.
John 17
“I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by[d] the truth; your word is truth.18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you,I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them,and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

Credit to Bible Gateway