How to Abide in Jesus and Father’s Love

David W Palmer

John’s account of the Last Supper evening and Jesus’s interaction with his apprentices / disciples / friends, shows the remarkable closeness and candidness of his deep love for them. This was no ordinary business conference, team meeting, or even family gathering. This was a time of transparent relational intimacy, communion, and warm tenderness.

In the middle of this special time with his friends—while being acutely aware of his imminent arrest, betrayal, denial, and death—Jesus began to speak of the love his Father had for him. What’s more, he told them how he had the same love for them, “if …”

(John 15:9–10 NKJV) “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. {10} 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.”

No one could deny the love God the Father had for his son, Jesus. Even while on the cross, and even while uttering, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34 NKJV), no one has ever questioned the Father’s love for his son. After all, Jesus was the spotless lamb who humbly and obediently did his Father’s will—to the point of death. He lived a sinless life, and fully pleased his Father in everything he did. Why wouldn’t the Father love him? He was perfect in every way.

When Jesus says, “As the Father loved me, I also have loved you,” this is astounding: we are not perfect; we haven’t fully pleased the Father in everything we have done, so why and how can Jesus say this about us? The answer is simple; we are not accepted and loved according to our past track record. We are accepted in, and only in, Jesus:

(Ephesians 1:4–6 NKJV) He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, {5} having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, {6} to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

God chose us “in him (Jesus),” and he made us “accepted in the Beloved.” God “made” us; this is the same as saying that in the new birth, he made us a new creation in Jesus; the “old” you has been annihilated (See: 2 Cor. 5:17). God has performed his most amazing miracle in our new birth; we are newly created “in him”—accredited with his perfect track record and with his absolute perfection in pleasing the father. In other words, in Jesus, we have fulfilled whatever conditions were necessary for God to love us with all of his love. What’s more, Jesus said he would love us too:

(John 15:9 NLT) “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”

After telling us that he loves us as his Father loved him, Jesus then went on to say, “Remain (or abide) in my love.” This part is our responsibility. Jesus set up the way, and took responsibility to ensure, that we are accepted and loved in him—according to his perfect obedience. This part is our responsibility. Jesus set up the way to, and took responsibility to, ensure that we are accepted and loved in him—according to his perfect obedience. But now he is showing us something that we need to do; for us to fulfill our part—abiding in his love—we need to obey his commandments:

(John 15:10 NLT) “When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”

Lack of obedience was our problem before receiving his undeserved new birth, so how do we now do what was impossible for us before? Primarily, we can now obey Jesus’s commandments because our new nature is just like him; with the Holy Spirit’s help, it is ready, willing, and able to obey:

(Colossians 1:22–23 NLT) “Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. {23} But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. …”

This is very exciting news; in Jesus, God re-made us “holy and blameless … without a single fault.” Now, added to this is the amazing truth that every command Jesus gives us carries with it his own power to obey it. If we receive his word, drink it in, believe it, and nurture it in our hearts; it contains the faith and gracious power to enable us to fulfill it.

You see, when God regenerated us with the new birth, he then made available to us his very own Spirit of holiness. The Holy Spirit’s infinite power of holiness is released in and through us to live a perfectly holy life, when we put our complete trust in Jesus and his word.

This is how we can fulfill his commands, and thus abide in his love. Interestingly, we could practically say that the reverse is true too; if we abide in Jesus and his love, we access his living word. This contains and conveys to us the faith, life, light, mind-renewal, and grace we need to obey his commands. Either way, we need a humble, transparent, submissive relationship with Jesus just like he had with his Father. This way, we can abide in him, in his word, and in his love.

Let’s conclude by looking at what Jesus said he did to remain in his Father’s love:

(John 15:10 NKJV) “... just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

(John 10:17 EMTV) “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it up again.”

Today, let’s lay down our old independent “self” life, take up the cross, and follow Jesus. This is how we “take up” the resurrected life in Jesus—our new life in him. This is the person both Jesus and Father love with the same love that Father loved Jesus. Remember, obedience to Jesus’s commands is a condition for receiving this love, but it is also the very thing that God’s love has enabled us to do:

(John 14:21 NLT) “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

(John 16:27 NLT) “For the Father himself loves you dearly because you love me and believe that I came from God.”