Being With Jesus--November 22, 2019
"And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us." [1 John 3:23-24]
Being loved has a way of changing you.
"And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us." [1 John 3:23-24]
Being loved has a way of changing you.
So does loving another in return.
For one, it often affects your geography--it affects where you choose to spend your time because of the one (or ones) with whom you want to spend your time. To put it more plainly, being loved and loving someone back makes you want to be in physical proximity with the beloved. And in a sense, if you want to find out who matters most to you, make a list of the people you allow to determine your geography.
Friends make plans to have coffee together--not in two separate locations, but in the same place at the same time--because they genuinely enjoy with in one another's company. A doe-eyed young couple decides they would rather be with one another than anyone else, and as they promise to be faithful to one another, they come to live in the same place and create a home for the two of them.
Parents go out of their way to spend time with their children. They do it when their kids are little, of course, playing and reading stories to them. But they also make the time when their children grow up--holding up their own schedules and calendars in order to be available for their children even when they are adults. It's so basic, so fundamental, that it seems silly almost to even have to say it, but just for the sake of clarity, let's be sure it's said: loving and being loved tends bring people together into one place for more and more of the time, not necessarily with something in particular to do together other than just being together.
The compact but powerful word that John uses for that idea of "being-together-with-the-beloved" is abide. To be loved by God, and for that love to kindle our love for God in response, is to be drawn closer into the presence of God--which is to say, we abide in God. That means acknowledging Christ is present here among us right now. And as John points out, too, for us Christians, that also means we are connected to, and drawn close to, the fullness of God: all three Persons whom we know as Father, Son, and Spirit. To love God the Father will necessarily bring us into relationship with Jesus, and with the Spirit, John says.
In other words, we will abide with God in all of who God is. Love just has a way of doing that--we allow those we love in to know more and more of us, more deeply and more truly, because we learn to be vulnerable in their presence and know it is safe there. So it is, John says, with us and God. As we are pulled closer in abiding in God, there is no "part" of God that is kept at arm's length from us. It's not that we get to know Jesus, but the Spirit keeps his guard up, refusing to let us in because he's afraid of getting hurt. The whole fullness of God is opened up to us, and vice versa. The more we are drawn further into awareness of God's presence all the time, the more we consciously surrender ourselves and open our lives up to this God. Love just does that to us--we want to be more and more fully present to the One who has loved us. And so we not only consciously choose to spend more time intentionally in the presence of God (we even might say "it is our duty and delight," or "it is indeed right and salutary" for us to do this...), but we come more and more to let our guard down with this God.
Surely God knows all the facts there are about us already, but as we abide more and more fully in God, we quit resisting and come to bring all of who we are to God intentionally. That, after all, is what prayer really is--bringing as much of myself as possible to God, knowing that God already "knows" what I am about to share anyway, but that I am now doing it with my guard down and my hands open. So anyway, just as we could say with families, spouses, and dear friends, we can say about us and God--love leads us into each other's presence, so that we abide with one another.
But then a second thing happens because of love--we are not just brought near to the ones we love, we are changed by them. We pick up the habits of the ones we love. We learn to speak like them, and their mannerisms and quirks rub off on us. Some of their favorite expressions or words find themselves peppered into our daily speech. And as we learn to live with someone we love, we also learn to live like them as well. In the household, for example, the whole family learns to use the same brand of tissues and toothpaste. You develop patterns for meals together and where the groceries are kept. In a friendship, you develop a shorthand of your own--common experiences and inside jokes--that affect the way you speak to others, too. And beyond that, we are changed, over time, into wanting for the other person the things that they want. We come to wish for their happiness, and so it affects our will, as well. To borrow a line from C. S. Lewis, you don't just look at one another, but you stand side by side and see with world with one another, sharing the same perspective, the same view of life. We come to do the kinds of things our beloved wants us to do--if not all the time, at least increasingly--simply because we love them, and without concern for what it will "get" us. You've seen it in your own life, I'm sure.
Well, John sees that happening for us as we abide in God, too. We are changed by abiding in God. We learn the habits of being like Jesus. We find his way of loving others becomes ours--and that his expansive list of whom to love becomes our list, too. We find the Spirit's way of enfolding and encouraging becomes our own way. We find that we want to do what will bring joy to the Father, not in order to get something from God, but simply because we love God and we want to be a part of bringing God joy. This is why John makes the connection between abiding in God and obeying his commandments. You want to know who is "abiding" in God? Well, take a look at people who seem to have the marks of being around this God--people who have found the way of Jesus and the presence of the Spirit rubbing off on them. You've seen people like this--people who, it seemed, have picked up the very habits and mannerisms of Christ, and who have brought you closer to God, too, so that you, too, could abide more deeply in God's presence and be changed by the encounter.
That's the kind of life John envisions for us--other beloved saints bring us closer to God, so that in God's presence, we will be made into Christ's likeness too, more and more, and then in turn, we become the kind of people whose lives draw others to abide in God's presence. Truth be told, it's an ever-moving, back-and-forth motion, where you help me to know God, and in turn I do the same for you, over and over again in our lives together in community, as the Spirit keeps working on the both of us through each other.
I don't know about you, but I find that kind of life utterly compelling, and I want to be a part of it as much as possible. This is the life we are offered today, we who have been loved by the living God and are invited to abide in Christ's presence, among us already, even on an ordinary Friday.
Lord God, let your love draw us in, so that we will delight in doing your will and love what you command, and in turn be changed by your abiding presence.
But then a second thing happens because of love--we are not just brought near to the ones we love, we are changed by them. We pick up the habits of the ones we love. We learn to speak like them, and their mannerisms and quirks rub off on us. Some of their favorite expressions or words find themselves peppered into our daily speech. And as we learn to live with someone we love, we also learn to live like them as well. In the household, for example, the whole family learns to use the same brand of tissues and toothpaste. You develop patterns for meals together and where the groceries are kept. In a friendship, you develop a shorthand of your own--common experiences and inside jokes--that affect the way you speak to others, too. And beyond that, we are changed, over time, into wanting for the other person the things that they want. We come to wish for their happiness, and so it affects our will, as well. To borrow a line from C. S. Lewis, you don't just look at one another, but you stand side by side and see with world with one another, sharing the same perspective, the same view of life. We come to do the kinds of things our beloved wants us to do--if not all the time, at least increasingly--simply because we love them, and without concern for what it will "get" us. You've seen it in your own life, I'm sure.
Well, John sees that happening for us as we abide in God, too. We are changed by abiding in God. We learn the habits of being like Jesus. We find his way of loving others becomes ours--and that his expansive list of whom to love becomes our list, too. We find the Spirit's way of enfolding and encouraging becomes our own way. We find that we want to do what will bring joy to the Father, not in order to get something from God, but simply because we love God and we want to be a part of bringing God joy. This is why John makes the connection between abiding in God and obeying his commandments. You want to know who is "abiding" in God? Well, take a look at people who seem to have the marks of being around this God--people who have found the way of Jesus and the presence of the Spirit rubbing off on them. You've seen people like this--people who, it seemed, have picked up the very habits and mannerisms of Christ, and who have brought you closer to God, too, so that you, too, could abide more deeply in God's presence and be changed by the encounter.
That's the kind of life John envisions for us--other beloved saints bring us closer to God, so that in God's presence, we will be made into Christ's likeness too, more and more, and then in turn, we become the kind of people whose lives draw others to abide in God's presence. Truth be told, it's an ever-moving, back-and-forth motion, where you help me to know God, and in turn I do the same for you, over and over again in our lives together in community, as the Spirit keeps working on the both of us through each other.
I don't know about you, but I find that kind of life utterly compelling, and I want to be a part of it as much as possible. This is the life we are offered today, we who have been loved by the living God and are invited to abide in Christ's presence, among us already, even on an ordinary Friday.
Lord God, let your love draw us in, so that we will delight in doing your will and love what you command, and in turn be changed by your abiding presence.
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