John 10:17-18 NIV “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”” https://bible.com/bible/111/jhn.10.17-18.NIV

The Father loved the Son because the Son willingly laid down His life to accomplish the work of the Father. The Son was free to lay down His life because He knew He would rise again to remain with the Father forever. We, too, are loved by the Son when we lay down our lives to accomplish the work He has commanded us. We, too, are promised eternal life with the Son when we have lived a faithful, obedient life to everything He commands. The work of the Son was to pay the penalty for sin all humanity deserves. The Son’s payment allows the Son to pardon all who come to Him for the forgiveness of their sin and commit to Him their lives of eternal allegiance. The work of the Church is the Great Commission, the mission of every Christian, which is to go everywhere to help everyone know Jesus as Savior and obey Jesus as Lord. This work requires us to lay down our lives, just as becoming the sacrificial lamb of God required the Son to lay down His life. The Church must die to self-interest and self-preservation to identify with Jesus in a hostile world and remain insistent upon His ways in a day when people despise all manner of godliness, living instead for their own pleasures. The Church must die to self in order to remain focused on the work of God instead of engaging in the accumulation of the things of this world with all its pleasures that are all destined to be destroyed on that day when the Son returns to reward His faithful servants and to condemn forever those who denied Him by their words and deeds. Those in the Son who die to self for the Son are promised eternal life with the Son.

RUN TODAY’S PLAY: Just as Jesus did, we must lay down our lives daily to follow Him and fulfill His mission.