John 14:15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.
Jesus gave us a new commandment, that in addition to loving God with all that we are, we love our neighbors as much as we love our ourselves. We will know the disciples of Jesus Christ by the love they show to others. Those who love, know God, He is love.
John 15:8-10 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. 9 “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.
As we abide in Christ Holy Spirit changes us, precept by precept, into the character of His Son. His fruit will be evident in our lives to be shared with others. Carla
Jesus wants the opposite of destruction for His disciples: He wants them to make God’s greatness known. The way His disciples prove to be His is by loving others as He loved them and by believing and proclaiming God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus’ death and resurrection (12:50; 13:34). In My love Indicates that they follow Jesus, who showed His love for them by being willing to sacrifice His life for them. The Spirit will be their guide in this process (14:26). Faithlife Study Bible
Notice the striking parallel between this verse and 13:35. The love of 13:35 is pictured as fruit here. The text has come full circle in showing how strategic it is for disciples to love each other, as Christ’s method of evangelizing the lost. “They shall know” becomes so you will be Christ’s disciples. Where there is good fruit, there are also seeds for propagation.
As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you: The love of God the Father for God the Son is the measure of the love of the Son for believers. Christ loves believers unconditionally (verse 9). But as believers obey Christ’s Word and abide in His love, they come to experience and understand His love for them more and more (Ephesians 3:14–19). The NKJV Study Bible
Jesus Christ is the Vine, the true Vine. The union of the human and Divine natures, and the fulness of the Spirit that is in him, resemble the root of the vine made fruitful by the moisture from a rich soil. Believers are branches of this Vine. The root is unseen, and our life is hid with Christ; the root bears the tree, diffuses sap to it, and in Christ are all supports and supplies. The branches of the vine are many, yet, meeting in the root, are all but one vine; thus all true Christians, though in place and opinion distant from each other, meet in Christ. Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
John 8:31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
John 17:26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
John 17:23–24 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world
I confess that there are times these days, when I can be overheard with one of my choice mutterings, “I’m in favor of living in the present, just not this one.”
In our western mindset, living in the present becomes a staged event. Staged to be "spiritual." As if this is something we must orchestrate. Or arrange. No wonder we sit stewing in the juices of our self-consciousness. “Am I present? What am I doing right or wrong?” All the while, missing the point.
As long as the present moment needs to be staged in order to be enough, we live from scarcity, not sufficiency. We have forgotten the gift of enough. “Sabbath Moments” Terry Hershey
We see how good Jesus is when we see how good the world is not.
Ecclesiastes often gives us a view of life without faith in God, and that view is expectedly dismal. Apart from the Lord, a person's "days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 2:23).
But God doesn't mean for us to read Ecclesiastes by itself, in the same way a photographer wouldn't want us to look at only the backdrop of a portrait. Instead, as believers in Jesus, we can read Ecclesiastes through the lens of Romans 8:19-21:
"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (emphases added).
The opposite of vanity is the gospel. Jesus changes our hopeless futility into glorious freedom! First5
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