To Encourage You

John 15:9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”

If you were to attempt to explain to someone how much God the Father loves God the Son, what words would you use?  Or would words fail you?  One of the words that comes to my mind as I ponder this is “unfathomable.” It’s so deep, so wide, so incredibly wonderful that it’s beyond our ability to fully understand. It’s so high there’s no top to it, it’s so deep there’s no bottom, and for width, it’s as far as the east is from the west. Then, it’s eternal. That’s because God is eternal and all His attributes, which includes first and foremost His amazing love, are eternal. It always was, and it always will be.  Then I think of the word “immutable.” It’s a word that means unchanging.  It isn’t something that wavers, like we are so prone to do.  He’s not fervently, passionately, in love with the Son today and then holding Him at arm’s length tomorrow.  No, unlike the Ephesian church whom Jesus rebuked for having left their first love, God’s first love burns as bright today as it did in eternity past, and it will burn with the same brightness into eternity future.  And then God’s love is “demonstrated.” In so many ways He shows His love by His actions.  And He reinforces those actions by His Words.  It’s not one without the other.  It’s a love that leaves no doubt.  And that’s all just the tip of the iceberg.  

Perhaps one of the most wonderful expressions that ever was written by a human being to describe God’s great love is in the last verse of my favorite hymn “The Love of God.” It goes like this:

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,
  And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
  And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
  Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
  Though stretched from sky to sky.”

Aren’t those wonderful words?  But even more wonderful are Jesus’ words in the passage above from John 15 when He says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”  Can you fathom this?  I don’t think you nor I can, for indeed it is unfathomable.  No matter how great we think His love is, it’s greater still, for He is greater still. It’s a love that Paul prayed that we would somehow “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).  And to think that Jesus encourages us to “abide” in this love. It means to be continually aware of it. It’s something He wants us to think about all the time, for HE thinks about it all the time.  He wants us to always believe it, ponder it, proclaim it, and always be thankful for it, for it is one of the Christian’s most wonderful possessions. And it is as we dwell in gratitude for such love, the only response that makes any sense is to joyfully show love to others.  It’s called a “continuing debt” in Romans 13:8. That’s what Jesus calls us to, for immediately after speaking the words above in John 15 He said this: “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.”  And as Galatians 5:14 tells us, “The whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” 

So, are you abiding in this love? Are you living in the constant awareness of it? If you are, then your life will be an expression of it and such a life is a life filled with joy, for as Jesus said, again in John 15, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” It is that unspeakable joy that is full of glory that is the possession of every believer if he or she will abide in Christ’s love. 

May God help us to do so.  May He help us to simply do what He has so wonderfully said.