Simply put, to abide in the love of Christ means to love Jesus and to be loved by Him. Just as the Father loved the Son, Jesus loves us. It sounds so easy, yet seems so complicated. In the fast-paced modern world we live in, we can become so caught up in chasing the things of this world that we forget to be still and abide in the love of Jesus. But to set aside the things of this world and dwell in Him is exactly what we should do. My prayer for us today is that we will learn to obey the commandments of Jesus and understand what it means to follow Him in everything that we do.
Then, through our obedience and love for Him, we will abide in the love of Christ and have fullness of joy. In 1 John we hear again about abiding in Jesus. But there is an extra component to this verse. Can you spot it? What did you learn about abiding in Jesus? What is different about this verse? What is it that we are given to help us abide? Scripture is so clear on the importance of our connection to the Father.
Thank you for putting the spotlight on this truth! When we abide in God, we are deepening our relationship with Him. That is the plan I want to be. Jesus repeats the phrase twice. John contains a command and a promise. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. John It occurs two times in these two verses. The Greek word for love in both verses is agapao and agape.
Agapao is the verb form of the noun agape. Both words refer to the highest form of love. This love is selfless. Agape does not refer to a friendship love, brother-sister love, a parental love, an emotional love or a sexual love. The Greek word for friendship love is phileo and the Greek word for sexual love is eros. There are at least twelve different Greek words that have the sense of love.
Therefore, Jesus commands believers to remain in His agape -love. On the other hand, if you love someone, and you want to express your love for them, if you want to experience the joy of fellowship with them, what do you do? You find out what they like, what they love, what makes them happy and brings them joy, and you do those things!
However, because I love her and want to share a great experience with her since intimacy is created through shared experiences , I want to do something for her that she will like. Thus, in my pursuit of her, in my desire to know her, one of my goals is to discover her likes and dislikes and do things she likes; not to earn her love, but as an expression of my love for her, and as a way of having fellowship with her.
In the same way, we can express love for God and experience fellowship with God by doing the things that we know He likes! You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.
Notify me of new posts via email. Abide in my love. This is interesting, because just a few verses later Jesus says: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
Consider what God told King Saul: Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
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