Grace & Truth Chapel
131 Fardale Avenue ~ Mahwah, New Jersey
Phone 201-327-6226 ~ E-mail gtchapel@juno.com

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"Love That Is Real" (posted February 1, 2010)

  If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
  These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
  This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
   - John 15:10-12

The love of Jesus rested upon these disciples— and upon us also— just as the Father’s love rested upon Himself. In the knowledge, the consciousness, the enjoyment of His love we are to abide. This abiding is maintained by obedience to His commandments.

Do we not know only too well that the moment we disobey His plainly expressed word our consciences smite us, and we are out of communion with His mind and out of the enjoyment of His love? Walking in obedience, we abide in His love, we enter into His joy, and our own joy is full.

Verse 12 is evidently connected with verse 10 in a very intimate way. Jesus spoke of keeping His commandments in a general way, but there was one commandment that He had already highlighted in a special way:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another."     - John 13:34 Now He returns to it again. Love is to flow between His disciples after the character of His perfect love towards them. Love that springs from the possession of the divine nature is to circulate amongst the divine family [that is, believers towards each other].

The flesh is in each, and the diversities amongst us are innumerable; hence, the opportunities for clashes and prejudices are endless. It is His commandment that the love of the divine nature triumph over the antagonisms of our fleshly nature. How have we obeyed this commandment? Our failure in this area accounts for the small measure in which we abide in His love and have His joy abiding in us. It also means poor discipleship and lack of glory to the Father.

Human love has its limit, as verse 13 states: "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." But the Lord teaches His disciples to regard each other as friends, because they are each and all His friends, being marked by obedience to His commands.

He was indeed going forth to lay down His life for them, but in Him was found a love which far exceeded all that was known among men. His love, and not mere human love, was to stamp its character on their love, one for the other.

Frank B. Hole



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