ABIDE IN MY LOVE
9As the Father has
loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
10If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s
commandments and abide in his love.
11These things I have
spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
12“This is my
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
13Greater love has no
one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my
friends if you do what I command you.
15No longer do I call
you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I
have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made
known to you.
16You did not choose
me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and
that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name,
he may give it to you.
17These things I
command you, so that you will love one another.
JOHN 15:9-17
COMMENTARY
Continuing with his
speech, Lord Jesus reinforces his call for us to ‘remain’ in his love.
Jesus is clear that
to maintain a good relationship with Him, it is necessary to live in harmony
with his holiness, which requires obedience to his will. Jesus demands us to ‘abide’,
because it is entirely to us, to decide to live under God’s will, avoiding sin.
It is understood, that whoever says that believes in Jesus, and do not do his
will, it is not in Jesus’s love, and it needs to repent and come back to Him.
And Lord Jesus summarizes
his ‘commands’ into one, ‘Love one another, like I have loved you’. Because his
is the highest expression of love in the universe. His unique love, is shown in
that even when we were in enmity with Him, He loved us and incarnated and died
for our salvation. And not only that, He filled us with miracles, forgiveness
and practical love in every way. It is his wish that we should love like Him,
and be that way true disciples of his.
Finally, Lord Jesus reveals
to his 11 apostles, that they are special in humanity. He tells them that He
had chosen them to be his special apostles, and not only that, He tells them
that they have received the fullness of revelation until then (Of course more
will be given to them later by the Holy Spirit). It is also important to note,
that even Judas Iscariot, who was not with them at that moment, but had gone
already to give Jesus to the Priests; was also one of these recipients, and
since the gravity of his sin, Satan like.
Also Jesus tells them
who they have been chosen to never fall, and to produce ‘fruit’, meaning, that
they are guarded by the Holy Spirit to persevere to the end, be faithful to
Christ and in that way, remain always within God’s favor.
And also to them, commends
to love their neighbors as He showed them, in his living example. An issue of
practice, not theory.
Omar Flores.
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