John 15:9-11
Is the Love of God like human love? Can we truly understand God’s Love from human perspective?
God’s Love is described as being steadfast and everlasting, meaning it is unchanging, will never change/fluctuate and will never stop and is is forever. We only need to visit what God promises man, at his fall in Eden. {Gen 3:15 Paraphrased} I will redeem you, I cannot forget you and in in time I will bring you back into my presence. What Jesus is effectively saying here is that he comes from God and he is God and therefore his love is like God. And then he shows us how much he loves us by accepting his death to save humankind. He urges us to experience this Love of his for us. Mark 1:14-15 tells us while John the Baptist said, repent for the Kingdom of God is at Hand, Jesus turned the message round and said, “The Kingdom has arrived, come experience it and then believe.”, to put it in other words, come as you are, taste/experience first-hand for your self, God’s Love, and then recognise Reality and truth for what it is and then throw yourself in the God’s arms.
Abiding also means mingling/intertwining our lives with that of God himself. This is yet another dimension of the symbolism of the vine.
Finally, he tells us that he is telling and informing us all these things, so that the fullness of knowing the truth may instil the fullness of Joy in us. And in we coming into the truth, Jesus will have great pleasure and Joy.
