This morning I began my day in the Word and in prayer, and this is the text I read:
“9 As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you; abide in My love. 10 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. 11 I have said these things to you so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete” John 15:9-11.
These are amazing words that spoke God’s voice so powerfully into my heart. Consider what Jesus is revealing to you and to me. God, our Father in heaven loves Jesus His Son with the same, unspeakably powerful lie that Jesus loves all of humanity. And if, by the grace of God, you and I just keep His commandments, we will abide, or live, in the love of Jesus Christ. As I have said before, to abide in, literally means to pitch your tent in. In other words, to abide in the love of Jesus Christ, is to take up residence in, to live in, the love of Jesus Christ completely and forever. And Jesus reveals that he tells us to live this way because He Himself has kept all of His Father’s commandments and He Himself abides in the Love of God, our Father in heaven.
Then Jesus says to us that he tells us to live this way so that His joy may be in all of our lives, the unspeakably deep and beautiful joy of Jesus Christ may be in us! And when this occurs our very own joy may be complete. The joy Jesus speaks of is in no way and typical human love, but the love of Jesus Christ, which is total self-sacrificing love of God. It is agape love!
I read this and thought deeply about these words of Jesus and prayed in these words: Lord, help me to love You and to abide in You and in Your Word completely and fully today. Lead mer away from temptation and forgive me of all my sins. I love You and want n nothing but to follow You and love You as You wish me to do. Let me love all whom You bring into my life today. And this I pray in Your name, amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“We love because he first loved us’ 1 John 4:19.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” Ephesians 2:4-5.
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” Deuteronomy 6:5.
“Jesus answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself’”
Luke 10:27.
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