Remaining In God's Love

In John 15:9-17 Jesus reminds us to remain in his love and to love one another.

How do we remain in his love? He gave us the answer, “by keeping his commandments.” Loving God is not an empty speech or a passive state. Loving God must be shown by our active obedience to his words.

If we say we love God but does not do what pleases him, ours is simply lip service. We must strive every day to cooperate with God’s grace to be transformed more and more into his image and likeness. God’s long-term challenge is this, “Be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 20:26, 1 Peter 1:16) and “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

We ask ourselves, “Can we ever measure up to this challenge?” The answer is both “no” and “yes,” No, if we are to rely on our own strength and merit, and yes, if we are to depend on Jesus’ holiness and perfection. Without God, our righteous deeds are just like a filthy cloth (Isaiah 64:6) but when we “clothe ourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14), it is the Son’s holiness and not our own that the Father sees in us. Thus, we are saved by God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8), for what is impossible with man is possible with God (Matthew 19:26) .

Love, however, is not only vertical, that is, between man and God. It should also be horizontal, or between and among us and our fellowmen. Jesus commands us, “Love one another as I love you.” John wrote, “Those who say I love God and hate their brothers and sisters are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 John 4:20). He also wrote, “Let us not love, not in word or speech but in truth and deed” (1 John 3:18).

It is in love that our faith in action is manifested. St. James warns us, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:14-17).

Love, with its two dimensions, sums up the Law. Asked which commandment in the Law is the greatest, Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).

#lifesjourney #righteousness