Remaining In Jesus’ Love
I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. - John 15:9 NLT
This is the greatest week ever! I love Holy Week. In it, we remember the most monumental event in all of human history where the Son of God fought the ultimate battle. God, Satan, sin & death, and our salvation & future -- all of it met at a crossroads on Calvary, and everything hinged on what Jesus did. And what a victory He won for us.
Perhaps the the greatest takeaway for me from the final week of Jesus' ministry is the revelation of God’s amazing love for us. As Romans says,
…Overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow--not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below--indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (8:37-39)
This is a love that never fails (1 Cor 13:8), and it was proved to us on the cross. As Romans 5:8 says,
God showed [or proved] his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
Love is not mainly an emotion, or feeling, or words. Love is mainly an action; a choice. And Jesus ultimately proved His true love for us by what He did at Calvary, not just by whatever He said along the way.
Just the other day, my wife Laura asked me why I think Jesus died in such a brutal way. Of course, Isaiah prophesied hundreds of years before that the Messiah would be beaten beyond recognition. But no where in the Old Testament was it a requirement that the sacrificial lambs be tortured like Jesus (our ultimate sacrificial lamb) was. My response was the generic, “Well, the crucifixion was the Roman execution method on criminals, and Jesus took our place as criminals to pay our debt.” And that is true. But Laura said something I hadn’t thought about before. She said (and I’m paraphrasing) Jesus could have gotten murdered any other way and it still would have been good enough for our atonement, but He went through all the pain and shame of that public spectacle because He wanted to show us how far He would go to win us back. In other words, He wanted to show us how much God truly loves us. That He would go as far to be tortured for you and me.
Like I wrote before, this truly proves His love for us. He wants you. Whenever you feel invisible, worthless, or unloved, think about the cross and you will be flooded with God’s presence again.
God’s love transforms us. That's why Jesus said in the Gospel of John, "Remain in my love," or earlier in the chapter when he said, "A branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me" (John 15:4). He wants us to be fruitful! That's why He telling us the key, which is to remain in His love. On this note, I want to close with a verse from Psalm 81, followed by a commentary from Church Smith that I found very moving:
For it was I, the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things. - Psalm 81:10
Smith's commentary:
We are told in Jude, "Keep yourselves in the love of God" (Jude 1:21). Now, by that is meant keep yourself in the place where God can demonstrate His love that He has for you. If you say, "Well, I've got to keep myself in the love of God," thinking, "I've got to keep myself real sweet and kind and generous and nice so that God can't help but love me," you've got the wrong concept of God's love. God loves you good or bad. God's love for you is uncaused by you. God's love for you is because of His nature of love. In reality, I cannot do anything to make God love me more. In the same token, I cannot do anything that would make God love me less. God loves me.
But it is possible for me to remove myself outside of that love of God. To put myself in the position where God really can't demonstrate that love that He has for me. And that's what Jude is telling us. And God is saying here the things that He desired to do for the people. "Just open your mouth wide; I'll fill it. I'll fill your life; just open yourself completely to Me. And I will fill your life."