“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love… I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” John 15:9-11
Dear Jesus, how can it possibly be? How can you love us just as much (quantity and quality) as the Father loves you? (Jn. 15:9) And to have abiding in your love as our main preoccupation in life—what a privilege, calling, and necessity. Do you really intend to give us the fullness of your joy? (Jn. 15:11)
Why can we believe this for others, but so reluctantly for ourselves? For starters, there’s our dogged unbelief. Then there’s the performance-heavy grace-lite teaching many of us grew up under (maybe, wilted down under). And there are our multiple grace-allergies, the lies of Satan, and our early-onset Gospel-amnesia.
Sometimes the diagnosis is way more simple, but just as debilitating. We are all “abide-ers,” but we don’t always choose to abide in your love. It’s easier to abide in busyness—choosing lesser things over eternal goodness. Or we abide in bitterness—rehearsing how people fail us, more than we savor your love. Or we abide in our brokenness—fixating on what we are not, don’t have, and can’t do.
Jesus, deliver us from us! Take us “further up and further in”—way further into the truth of the Gospel, the wonders of your love, and the riches of your grace. As we prepare to enter Holy Week (the week leading up to Easter), prepare us for a fresh encounter with yourself. Free us from all futile abiding’s. So Very Amen.
