To abide in Christ should be our constant desire and aim. Yes, we are in Christ, yes we are a new creation, but do we abide in him? What does that mean anyway?

What does it mean to abide in Christ? In v. 9 he restates the same thing:

“As the Father has loved me so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”

Aha! We’re getting a bit closer. Then in v. 12

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

Command? How can love be commanded? Because the love of God is the resolve to serve another–just as Christ went to the cross out of love, all the while having desired that this cup should pass from him if at all possible according to the will of the father. Here is seen the pattern of love that Christ lays out of the Son abiding in the father; he recieves his life from him and resolves to serve him and his creation through the sacrifice of his very life. This love is not a desire for pain; for love sacrifices for the good of another–good defined by Dr. Eschelbach as “that which sustains design.”

So we see that God’s will for us is to be caught up in this eternal love that has bought us and sanctifies us; to have all our being absorbed into that great source of all life by a saturation in his living Word (v. 7). It is the life that is in that Love; the love that is that Life; that Loving Life in which we can live move and have our being.

“Lord fill us with your holy desires, teach us to truly abide in you as we seek your face in the meditation of your Word. Would our prayers be an expression of your divine love flowing freely into our heart and extending all throughout our words and actions so that the fruit of love that your Holy Spirit produces in our life would be proof that we are your disciples.”