Remain in My Love
Opening Prayer
Thank You, my Father, for Your incredible love for me—a love so deep I can’t even begin to understand it.
Read John 15:9–17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
How much do you think God loves you? What difference does that make to your day?“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you” (9). How has the Father loved the Son? Doesn’t he love him eternally, perfectly, intimately, affectionately, unchangeably, joyfully? What else could you add?
You see the extent of Jesus’ love in verse 13: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus will die on the cross so that you could be loved as he is loved. He will lay down his life so that you too can call God, “Father.” He will die to bring you
to a God who is love (1 John 4:8,16), and into the intimate and loving relationship the Father, Son and Spirit have enjoyed for all eternity. And seeing how much we’re loved, don’t we want to stay close to him? Eleven times in verses 1–17 Jesus tells his disciples to remain or abide or stay in him and his love.
And Jesus shows us what this looks like in verse 10. Jesus knows he is loved, and so he obeys his Father. We simply copy that pattern. The more we realize we are loved, the more we’ll want to obey Jesus. After all, why wouldn’t you obey someone who loves you perfectly, who dies for you and will never abandon you?
Apply
What does it mean for you today that Jesus loves you the way his Father loves him? How does that change your heart today?
Closing prayer
God, help me to obey You, not from duty but from an
overflowing love for You.
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