LIVING CONNECTED TO THE LORD JESUS
John 15:9-12 CSB
9 "As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father'scommands and remain in his love.
11 "I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
12 "This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you.
I have used the CSB version for our verses for today. This chapter is part of Jesus' last instructions to His disciples before the cross. John is the only gospel writer who covers Jesus' last words in this detail. Jesus' words are not light; they contain a level of depth and bring out important truths. The key truth from our reading today is the importance of staying connected to Jesus.
Jesus used the metaphor of Him as the vine, and we are the branches. Branches thrive when they stay connected to the vine. As believers, we thrive as we stay connected to Jesus. So the question remains, how do we stay connected to the Lord? I don't know all that is involved with remaining in the vine. But I do know it will have something to do with obeying Jesus' commandments. Jesus said if we obey what He said, we would remain in His love. He loves us as the Father has loved Him. And if we keep His commandments, we will remain in His love. We will stay connected to His love.
When we stop and think about these words, it makes sense. We can't stay connected to Jesus and not do what He says. We don't remain or abide in Him, and yet do our own thing. So our connection to Jesus and His love is directly connected to our obedience to His words and commandments.
If you have an employee that you give instructions to, and they ignore the directions, you know you have a problem. Jesus should occupy a bigger place in our lives than our employers. Jesus is the source of our spiritual life. All the verses that talk about who we are in Christ are, in effect, saying who we are in the vine. He is righteous and has given us His righteousness. He won a victory over sin and death and has given that victory to us. When He was raised from the dead, we were raised with Him. The Heavenly Father sees us as connected. God was the One who connected us in Christ. So now that we are connected to Him spiritually, we live this way. And love is the first place to start.
Jesus commanded us to love one another as He has loved us. For us to remain in His love, we have to practice loving our family in Christ. This is not to ruin our fun. Rather, Jesus said He wanted His joy to be in us and our joy to be full. We are not going to be able to ignore walking in love if we want to live connected to the vine. God is love. His kingdom operates on love. And Jesus' commandment is that we love one another as He loved us.
So how do we do that? How can we love one another as Jesus loved us? The first thing is to stop saying we can't. Jesus is fair. If He told us to do this, then we have the capacity. I would suggest reading 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Paul describes what the Jesus kind of love looks like. I won't go into detail here, but I can assure you it looks quite different from selfishness. Recognize what selfishness does and do the opposite. That's not a great theological answer, but it can help you get started.
Staying connected to the Lord is where we want to be. And thankfully, it's within our reach.
PRAYER
Lord, teach me what it means to remain in You, to abide in You. Show me how I can be more fruitful as a branch and how I can remain in Your love. Reveal to me what walking in Your kind of love looks like in my life.