Abide In My Love
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” —John 15:9 ESV
Love for God is the foundation of our relationship with him. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:1 ESV, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” In other words, even if I have elite rhetoric and am so spiritual that I converse with angels, it’s all nothing without love.
Love is the essence of God—everything he says and does is expressed by his love. God’s love is not a surface-level matter. It’s built upon God’s holiness and faithfulness and expressed in goodness and mercy. This is eternal love.
The love between the Father and the Son is our revelation and example of real love. It is an entirely wondrous mystery for us here on earth to ponder the depths of this kind of love. How can we capture in our hearts or minds a love that has been at work in the Trinity for eternity upon eternity? Perhaps this is why Paul prays for the Ephesian church in Ephesians 3:19 to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”
God’s love will always be a mystery to us. It’s why we sing, “Amazing love, how can it be?” Still, God has invited us to encounter his love throughout our lives. To abide in God’s love is to live a life continually impacted by the love of God.
Knowing that we can never fully understand the love of God, how do we engage with God’s love? Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV) says, “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” We can only know God’s love fully when we are open to giving and receiving love with every part of our being.
Often in worship ministry, I encounter people who claim that some people only worship with their hearts while others only worship with their minds. Most frequently, people claim they don’t worship with their strength (physical expression). I always think that if God has called us to love him (and worship him) with every part of our being, holding anything back only means we miss out on his love!
God has invited us to know him through encounters with his love. Sometimes this looks like revelation and understanding of his word. Other times it seems like renewed strength to persist in the task before us. It could be a renewal of the heart, or it might be a healing of the soul. All these things matter; abiding in God includes every part of our being.
Where can you open yourself up to more of God’s love today?
