March
7, 2003
ABIDE
IN MY LOVE
"As
the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
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"
(John 15:9, 10, NKJV).
Jesus
said, "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you"
(John 15:9). The Father not only loved Jesus, He loves you
and me supremely. After all, He sent Jesus, and gave Him to
the human race to save us from the usurper. "For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting
life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn
the world, but that the world through Him might be saved"
(John 3:16, 17).
However,
abiding in the love of Jesus requires us to make a choice.
"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" (John 15:10). We need to
understand more fully the value of the truths of the word
of God and the danger of allowing our minds to be diverted
from them by the enemy of our souls. The infinite value of
the sacrifice required for our redemption reveals the fact
that sin is a tremendous evil and it is God's purpose to eradicate
the evil of sin from our universe. The life of Jesus was the
perfect fulfillment of every precept of the law of God. Jesus
said, "I have kept My Fathers commandments
and abide in His love" (John 15:10).
In referring
to the law of God in the Old Testament (see Exodus 20:2-17),
a lawyer asked Jesus, " 'Teacher, which is the great
commandment in the law?' Jesus said to him, 'You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and
great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang
all the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 22:36-40).
Here Jesus stated the essence of the Gospel. God's commands
are based on the foundation of love and respect for one another.
And Jesus,
who is the fulfillment of the law of God, restated it's principles
for us. "This is My commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love
has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his
friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you"
(John 15:12). "Love is the fulfillment of the law"
(Romans 13:10).
Learning
how to love others as Jesus has loved us is abiding in His
love! What better choice could we make?
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