"You shall abide in My love." John
15:10
As
we review all of chapters 14 to 17 of the Gospel according to John, it becomes
evident that in this comforting message Jesus was laying very special emphasis
on our place of security in His love, and in the love of our Heavenly Father.
We are impressed also with how much He said about our dwelling in Him, abiding
in His Word, and thereby having a full experience of His joy and peace. He
began with words of comfort to hearts greatly perplexed by hints of impending
trials, and so He continued this strain of encouragement throughout the entire
discourse of these four chapters. His thought was to give confidence and good
cheer to His immediate disciples, and the same words have brought similar
blessings to all His sincere, true followers even to the present hour. It was a
message intended to assure all such that they would be shadowed under the
canopy of His own and the Father's unfailing love. He
reiterates His own love, and leaves no doubt about the Father's love being
perfectly revealed in His own. He wants it believed that from the security of
that love no power can pluck those so greatly loved and protected from Him.
How cheering His words: --"As the
Father has loved Me, so have I loved you: continue in
My love. If you keep My commandments, you shall abide
in My love; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in His
love. These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and
that your joy might be full" (John 15:9-11).
"As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you." Who can measure the
significance of such words! None but His loved ones can approximate their
meaning. They have a depth and a wealth of meaning well nigh incomprehensible.
The analogy between the love existing in the relationship of the Father and
Son, and the closeness of fellowship Jesus suggests we may have with them both,
indicates an incomparable privilege. Yet, it is to make this astounding fact
clear to us that Jesus returns to it again and again in these chapters. He desires,
therefore, to have us know that in this very close and
tender affection we shall abide in His love.
We
are to remember, of course, that in this particular matter, the emphasis is on
our abiding in His love for us. It is obvious that what is
meant is not primarily our loving Him, but rather our keeping His commandments
and thereby abiding in the sweet sense of His love toward us. This is the
Divine order always. "We love Him,
because He first loved us." Certain
it is that whoever thus abides in Christ's love, will echo it back in a
continuous warm love for Him. Thus, the two streams of love continue to flow
deep and full, the love of Christ flowing to us in the volume of an
all-excelling love Divine, and our love responding in a devotion, which counts
every other gain as loss and dross because of love for One
so altogether lovely.
To
abide in this environment of love we must have the mind of Christ. Like Him we
must have a perfect delight in all the will of God, and find ourselves wanting
all that good and acceptable will wrought out in our experiences. If we are to
be ready for Christ in His coming to be glorified in His saints, there are
experiences for us in the will of God we cannot afford to miss. We are, therefore, to know how He loves us, not merely as a pleasing
sentiment in the realm of meditation, but know it through the medium of
experiences sufficient to give us the best and deepest sense of its reality and
permanency. If ours is the obedience of faith toward the will of God in all
things, such trusting and obeying will bring this unmistakable evidence that we
are truly abiding in His will and, therefore, in a love that will not let us go. We usually hold,
very limited conceptions of what the Lord's love yearns to do for us, as in
many ways He seeks to work in us to will His good pleasure, and do it. Our slowness
to believe and act in the fullness of true faith is always regrettable. We see
only in part as yet, and how grateful we may well be that God graciously
understands our limitations and so continues His work in us and for us. He
knows that when we have reached the end
of the way, where faith will be lost in sight, and all life's windings and
turnings, sorrows and joys are understood in the light of His great love for
us, then we will be glad that He had His way with us.
To
abide in the love of Christ will mean that ere long it will be seen that He gives His best to those who leave the
choice with Him. His love looks forward to great ends, even to an eternity
of true happiness and activity possible only to those who have passed through
the needed discipline here below. This means a willingness to leave the
complete choice of life's experiences wholly in His wise and loving supervision.
As to what this will mean Jesus uses the illustration of the vine and its
branches to teach us, showing us what to expect in the way of love's
operations. The pruning of the branches in this illustration is a picture of
love seeking the greatest possible measure of fruitage. It is love that desires
to see each branch in the true Vine bearing large clusters of ripened fruit.
The branch responding to the pruning is shown as bearing more fruit, even much
fruit. The branch, failing to respond,
becomes a castaway. It was Jesus, the Vine, who said, "In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good
cheer." He had overcome the same world experiences, learning obedience
by the things He suffered. How greatly
the Husbandman was glorified by the abundance of fruitage gathered from the
Vine!
If,
then, we respond to the needed discipline as Jesus did, He will encourage us
with His promise, "You shall abide
in My love, even as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His
love" (John 15:10). All things, then, work together for our good, as
the called of God according to His will and purpose. Tribulations and tests of
faith we must have; but it is needful to remember that the Lord can "steal the bitter from life's
woes" only when we are rightly exercised by them. And if so exercised
while the trials are doing their work on our characters, we shall yet see all
these shine with a luster of glory when all are understood. Was it not so with
Joseph in God's marvelous overruling in his bitter trials? What privileges of
service he would have missed otherwise. And what remarkable experiences of God's
very personal care might never have been his if life's choice had been left in
his own hands. Think of the outcome in Job's severe testing of his faith and
patience. And think also of Elijah, utterly discouraged and pleading to be allowed
to die, little knowing what he too would have missed if he had been permitted
to lie down under his juniper tree and die. Had his prayer been granted, there
would have been for him no vision of mighty wind, earthquake and fire, in which
God pictured coming events of extraordinary significance to Elijah and to us;
he would have missed the lesson of the "still
small voice" of God speaking to him for his encouragement. There would
have been no separation by fiery chariot and exit by whirlwind from
his sphere of service; and in all probability no place for him in the tableau
of splendor on the mount of transfiguration. Elijah's way out, if it had been
granted when he was discouraged with his experiences, would have made but half
a picture. God's way was a complete and wonderful picture, perfect in all its
parts. It is even so with us in our appointed pathway when we continue in the
love of Christ, and let Him choose in all things. (To be continued)
J.J. Blackburn
“…the good disciple first, enriches his own life; his
contact makes him a fruitful branch. Second, he brings glory to God; the
sight of his life turns men’s thoughts to the God who made him like that. God is glorified when we bear much fruit and
show ourselves to be disciples of Jesus.
The greatest glory of the Christian life is that by our life and conduct
we can bring glory to God.” William Barclay