Remaining in the Love of Christ

 

We can become so consumed with our daily routines that we forget we’re required to dwell in God and abide in His love continually. Jesus Christ said in John 15:9(NKJV), “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” This is something that none of us can fake. To abide in the love of Jesus Christ is to live according to the example he has set for us. Our Lord and Master was perfect; he never sinned. Many people have remarked that they can’t live like Jesus. They are of the opinion that it’s too difficult. To them the world has too many pleasures, and they can’t see the overwhelming benefit of living in Christ as the remarkably generous treasure that it is.

Jesus Christ said in John 15:10(NIV), “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.” Our Master Jesus remained in the Father’s love, which means he never did anything that was outside of God’s love. God’s love saturated his every move, and Jesus is telling us affirmatively that when we remain in him, God’s love will cover all that we do as well. God’s love is powerful. It is the greatest power that exists. It is so powerful that it transforms human beings into the people that God actually destined them to be. To remain in the love of Christ is to remain attached to our origin. It is to be restored to God’s original intention for our existences. Every pleasure that the world can offer drastically pales in comparison to this.

There is a kind of unspeakable suffering that all human beings have. Indeed, we were born with it because we were born in sin and born into a sinful world. We were born disconnected from God as a result of Adam’s and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden. Romans 5:12(NIV), tells us, “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.” God created human beings in His image. He gave us the gift of free-will choice. When everything is said and done, free-will choice boils down to choosing what father we are going to serve. We are created to be children, that’s who we are, and children have fathers. We will either serve our Heavenly Father, or we will serve satan, the father of lies. Those are the two choices, and there is no such thing as a neutral position.

In John 8:44(NLT), Jesus Christ told those who rejected the truth, “For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Human beings live in one of two modes of existence, reality or false reality. We choose either of these based on what and how we believe. We will either chose to believe what God says, which is the reality of truth, or we will believe the lies from satan. This choice is ever before each of us.

Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. They chose to believe in a false reality. They chose the words of satan over the Word of God, and the consequences were monumentally dire. Falling for satan’s trick, they landed themselves in a whole heap of trouble, and it meant they lost holiness, which meant they lost their connection to God. Adam and Eve were tricked into believing that they could be more than children. They misunderstood the desire of their souls to express itself more fully, and because of this misunderstanding, they sought to express the soul’s desire by acting on its passion and emotions. This choice rejected the sovereignty of God and caused them to move into the false reality of sin, which is satan’s territory of darkness and ignorance. Once in this territory, the devil keeps people blind and unconscious to the reality of who God has called them to be. 2Corinthians 4:4(NLT) says it best, “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don't understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.”

Renewing our minds and saturating our hearts continually with knowledge of God transforms us into His likeness. This is God’s process of growth and perfection, and Adam and Eve rejected it. They were hungry for more, but had no need for more, because all they needed God had supplied. They thought time was their enemy, that disobedience would achieve dominance, that correction brought about shame, and that deception would yield better results than truth. They were deceived by satan’s lies. So, the first couple revealed the degenerative nature of humanity’s lowest self, known in God’s Word as the “old man” nature.

God tells us in Colossians 3:9-10(NKJV), “9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him.” Through the new birth experience, the Holy Spirit gives birth to the human spirit. God tells us through the Apostle Paul in 2Corinthians 5:17(NKJV), “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” God has created us in His image, and again, one of the things that makes us like Heavenly Father is the element of choice that exists within our make-up.

Jesus Christ always had free-will. Hebrews 4:15(NKJV) tells us, "For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin." Jesus Christ is our high priest, and there isn’t a temptation, aspect of suffering, or tribulation that any human being has experienced that Jesus Christ didn’t also endure. The difference is that he endured those things and never sinned. He never made a mistake and lived perfectly when he walked upon this earth because he knew the truth. He knew that God is perfect and everything that God has created is perfect. There was never a doubt in the mind of Christ because he was in God and God was in him. Because of Christ, we can live through him in God’s love. In and of ourselves, we can’t live a successful life as a believer, but because we can live through Jesus Christ, we can love as he loved, give as he gave, and live as he lived.

Jesus Christ walked in total freedom from fear of any kind because he knew the truth, and indeed, he is the truth. He made it available for us to walk in truth through the Holy Spirit. We have God’s Spirit living inside our human spirits. We have the tremendous privilege and honor to reject the actions of Adam and Eve, to proclaim the sovereignty of God through Jesus Christ, and to walk in the truth. Many people have found out the hard way that the pleasures in the world are empty and destructive. They are simply smoke-screens and lures away from the truth. Our reality is in Jesus Christ. He is the truth, and the more we walk, live, and love through him, the more we will live the more than abundant life that he came to http://make available to us. ■

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.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Remaining in the Love of Christ”, written for Christian Encouragement and Inspiration© 2021. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.