Today’s title, “For the Love of Jesus,” may sound familiar to you, or one like it, “For the love of God,” or “For Pete’s Sake,” or “For Goodness Sake.” Unfortunately, these idioms, if used by you and me in their cultural context, would put us “between the devil and the deep blue sea,” in the view of God. The phrase is commonly used in exasperation, “If you are hem hawing, disregarding, or refusing for any other reason, then please, for the love of Jesus, do it anyway.” It’s also used as a substitution for cursing.

Problem is, as with many things in society, they steal a concept from scripture and pervert its meaning or purpose.

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

So, how should you and I live our lives, for the love of Jesus(?), and, therefore, the Father, or for something else?

A PERFECT way to live our lives for SOMETHING OTHER THAN GOD would be to pervert the meaning of God’s word, to use the very word of God to contradict God.

How might this be done?

Several years ago, the church published a great poem, entitled, “God Cares for You”, narrated with imagery on video. The style is called “reverse poetry.” If you read each phrase of the poem going down the script, it tells an understandable story one way, but if you read each phrase starting from the bottom, the story completely changes. The cleverness of the style garners two different meanings from the same phrases. They don’t harmonize a concept, but they change it.

“God Cares for You” (read forward then backward)

God cares for you(?)
No. the truth is
God doesn’t care about people
I refuse to believe that
We can hope in Him
Can’t you see that
The fighting, the hate, the violence
Will one day extinguish
His followers
Make no mistake
To truly lead them
a loving God
wouldn’t allow
mankind
to suffer so much
what causes so many
to believe in Him
foolishness
it
is
foolishness(?)
won’t
God
Continue to ignore
The evil things men do
God can’t hear us
You’re wrong when you say
God can
But I know
We can fix things on our own
Don’t be fooled into thinking
God cares.

I’m using this poem to share with you a concept, and that concept is, man without the Spirit of God will use the word of God (manipulated) to defend unbelief, but man with the Spirit of God will use the very same words properly read to believe.

We must ALWAYS be careful to study God’s word in such a way that we don’t cause it to contradict itself.

Let us refer back to John 14...

Joh 14:23  Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

I can read those words, not refer to any other scripture and easily define for myself what I think it means to keep Jesus’ word for the love of Jesus and the Father. But, without studying further what it means to “keep My word,” I could easily define “word” incompletely, and therefore, incompletely define “love.”

INTRODUCE “ROW YOUR BOAT.” (short audio rendition of the song provided as a "round")

From Q&A at ars-nova.com

Question: What are the rules for writing a round? - R.

Answer: That's a really interesting question.

“...let us say that a round is a type of canon (i.e. a composition based on some kind of rule or puzzle); it's a melody written in such a way that it can provide counterpoint (melodic accompaniment) for itself if different singers or instruments begin it at different times. And a "round" is a "circular canon," because its last part also works with its first part, so that performers can just repeat when they get to the end and it will go around forever or until someone drops of exhaustion.”

So, this style of music provides order and harmony even though the phrases sung or notes played alongside each other are different.

In John 14 we learned that we prove we love Jesus if we keep His word, but what is His word?

1 Jn 3:23  And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

So, the Father also has a commandment, that we should believe on the One, Jesus, who gave the commandment to love one another.

This solves everything, doesn't it? I obey the Father by believing in Jesus, and I obey Jesus by loving other people. Well, it does, but it also doesn't, because we must read more to understand what it means to believe in Jesus and love other people. Otherwise, we will come up, each with his or her own definitions, and none quite like anyone else.

2 Jn 1:6  This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

Here in second John, we learn that the “commandment”, is to “walk according to His commandments (plural), so suddenly, obeying and loving isn’t as simplistic a commandment. Could it be, that to love God and neighbor, I must practice multiple commandments to define that love?

Let’s look at one last clever concept by inspecting some phrases...
One such phrase shows us when we are getting a good deal in a trade... A nut for a jar of tuna.

Or, what happens when we hear a sermon involving hell fire and brimstone?... We panic in a pew.

Here are some other clever phrases...

Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?

Do, O God, no evil deed! Live on! Do good!

What makes these phrases so clever? Well, here’s a single word that might help explain them... Aibohphobia (spell it) (fear of palindromes)

Palindromes mean the same thing no matter from which end you come at them, the same from the end as from the beginning.

God’s word, accurately understood, never changes it’s meaning. God does not leave for you and me the burden of figuring out what to obey or how love is defined, nor do the definitions change. The word of God provides everything we need to live through Christ’s righteousness.

If we turn to the book of Matthew, we can add to our understanding what it means to love and what are the commandments...

Mat 22:37  Jesus said to him, 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
Mat 22:38  This is the first and great commandment.
Mat 22:39  And the second is like it: 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'
Mat 22:40  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

So, here we learn that we are not just to love each other, but God also, and that it’s okay to say only the former, because it is likened to also loving God. Then we see that all the law and prophets hang off of that concept. CHIMES

Today’s exercise is not meant to comprehensively define “love” or “commandments”. Instead, it is to help us better understand just how far we need to go to understand the truth of God.

Mat 4:4  But He answered and said, "It is written, 'MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE, BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.' "

When we practice seeking the truth by studying and believing EVERY WORD, and not taking out of context, we can then be confident in the following...

1 Jn 3:22  And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.