John 14:23 (NKJV)
23 Jesus answered and said to him,” If anyone loves Me,
he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and
make Our home with him.
Jesus responding to one of the disciples makes a promise
that if anyone loves Him they will abide by his words. God the Father will also
love them and both Christ and the Father will be with them always. “The light
and love of God are communicated to man in the light and love of the Redeemer,
so that wherever Christ is formed the image of God is stamped. [1]”
Brent Curtis writes in The Sacred Romance, (Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1997): If I'm not abiding in Jesus, then where is it that I abide?
I once asked myself. I began to notice that when I was tired or anxious, there
were certain sentences I would say in my head that led me to a familiar place.
The journey to this place would often start with me walking around disturbed,
feeling as if there was something deep inside that I needed to put into words
but couldn't quite capture. I felt the "something" as anxiety,
loneliness, and a need for connection with someone. If no connection came, I
would start to say things like, "Life really stinks. Why is it always so
hard? It's never going to change." If no one noticed I was struggling or
asked me what was wrong, I found my sentences shifting to a more cynical level:
"Who cares? Life is a joke." Surprisingly, by the time I was saying
those last sentences, I was feeling better. The anxiety was greatly diminished.
My comforter, my abiding place, was cynicism and
rebellion. From this abiding place, I would feel free to use some soul cocaine,
watching a violent video with maybe a little sexual titillation thrown in,
having more alcohol with a meal than I might normally drink, things that would
allow me to feel better for a little while. I had always thought of these
things as just bad habits. I began to see they were much more; they were
spiritual abiding places that were my comforters and friends in a very
spiritual way.
The final light went on one evening when I read John 15:7
in The Message. Peterson translates Jesus' words on abiding this way: "If
you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be
sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon." Jesus was
saying in answer to my question, "I have made my home in you, Brent. But
you still have other comforters you go to. You must learn to make your home in
me."
God the Father and Christ both love us deeply. When we
return our love for them through faith and obedience we are drawn closer to
Them and They to us. Their desire is to abide with us and help us through the
tough times. They want to take away our anxiousness, our loneliness, and
disconnection from others. When times are difficult, instead of making objects
of life our comforters we need to turn to The Lord in love and allow Him to
comfort us.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 says, “Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that
we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with
which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound
in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.”
[1] Matthew
Henry Commentary on John 14
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