Continuing Your Love In Jesus

We have come to this place of continuation, this place of sheer beauty and wonder, crafted out by our Holy Spirit Himself as He grants us a higher order learning that only comes through surrender of self, and will, and obedience, to the love commands given to us by our Lord. Only in Him, is the Word made alive, living, fresh and nourishing to us who so want to be constantly abiding in Jesus. We want to be constantly abiding in Love, His Love.

We have been made to see and know, with convincing proof, not only that each of us human beings, who believes, can be in Jesus, but that we can know in us, in our mortal bodies, His Personal Love, His Sacrificial Love and His Everlasting Love. As God the Holy Spirit works out this Love in us, we humbly, yet joyfully wait to receive more from this secular love song, which our Lord is using to show us His fathomless and most ingenious ways.

More than you'll ever know my arms long to hold you so.

When you first read this line, did your heartstrings pull, as you remembered something about Jesus? As soon as I read just these five words, more than you'll ever know, my mind was taken straight to Jesus and how He spoke of longing to hold His people in His Loving, Parent-embracing arms. Listen to the longing, sad and sorrowful voice of Jesus. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! Luke 13: 34. Can’t you hear the sad voice of Jesus saying, that they would or could never know, the longing in His heart, just to hold them in His arms? They simply cannot fathom how much He desperately wanted to have them in sweet, intimate embrace, the sort of embrace as when a hen gathers her young, vulnerable chickens under her wings. They are all hers, no one else’s. She is not gathering someone else’s chicks, which she has stolen. No! She is embracing her own. Just to think, first of all, that I belong to Jesus, I am no stolen property, but that I am His, born of Him, is skyrocketing. Secondly, to think that He longs to hold me tight, in His loving embrace, to show how much He loves me, is stupendously breath-taking.

We are in Jesus, when we know His Embracing Love is in us. 

My life will be in your keeping; waking, sleeping, laughing, weeping.

While I was being taught on this, I confess that I thought I had got this one down pat, on my own. But how wrong was I. I was interpreting this as my life being in Jesus’ keeping, but I was shown the opposite, which truly moves us to another level of trust, wisdom and understanding. This is a covenant-keeping, command-obeying situation.

Earlier, we spoke of Jesus being the Living Word made flesh, and all His words are life and joy; truth and peace; healing and wholeness to us. In this vein, it stands to reason that if we are in Jesus and Jesus is in us, then we have His Living Word in us. If we have His living Word in us, we have His Life in us. Can our Lord be saying to us that His Word, His Life, is in our keeping? Proverbs 4: 20 – 22 says this to us. My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to a man’s whole body. 

To keep the Word within your heart, is to keep all, not some, but all of life in you. It is our Jesus’ Life, Love’s Life. Our Lord’s waking, sleeping, laughing, weeping will become ours.

We are in Jesus, when we know His Trusting Love is in us. 

Longer than always is a long, long time. But far beyond forever, you'll be mine.

Here is passionate love, love that can’t even begin to imagine not loving. This is love that has no end. Is this not the Love Jesus has for all who are His? Is this not the Love the Father has for Him and the same Love, the only Love He knows to love us with? Here is proof and testimony of this truth. It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. John 13: 1. Yes! This Love is speaking of eternity.

We are in Jesus, when we know His Eternal Love is in us. 

I know I never lived before, and my heart is very sure, no one else could love you more.

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom God the Father has promised and has already sent, is the Spirit of Truth. Jesus clearly states this. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. John 14: 17b. Jesus also speaks of Himself being in the Father and we who love Him and keep His commands, as being in Him, and He being in us. On that day you will realize that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14: 20. You are in Jesus, because He is in you. If we worship a Triune God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – One God, then the Holy Spirit in you, is Jesus in you. To be born of the Spirit, to know Spiritual birth, is to know Spirit in you; it is to know Jesus in you. The abiding Holy Spirit is Jesus Himself, in Spirit in you. Is this not most lavish confession of responsive love? What I mean is this. When we know the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in us, His Love cancels all loves we have had, and we know that we have never loved before. We know this, for we now realize that before, we were dead in sin, but now, quickened by heavenly Love, we live to love. We feel that no one else can love God more than we do, because of what His Love has done for us, is doing for us and will do for us.  

We are in Jesus, when we know His Triune Love is in us. 

As we enter into the final week of travel before Holy Week, we bow before the Throne of Grace, in undeniable, submissive response to the Dying Love of Jesus, whose powerful and ever working Blood, daily works to bring us pardon and peace.