If You Love Me, Part III

Continued from yesterday

God has acted and provided for us an advocate, a comforter, a helper – he has placed himself beside us during time or trouble or need.  The Bible is full of images that echo this action of love.  Think back to the time when God bans Adam and Eve from the Garden.  Before they leave, he makes them clothes.  When Jacob has left home and is headed to Haran, he dreams about a ladder reaching toward heaven.  Angels were moving up and down the ladder, but God was standing beside Jacob, on the ground.  When Moses tries to argue his way out of going back to Egypt, God is right there with him, countering each argument, but never giving up on him.  I hope you have experienced that kind of presence of God.  I hope you have felt God standing with you in time of trouble or need.

Knowing the impossibility of the task, and out of his great love for us, God has acted, and calls the Holy Spirit to be with us – grace to equip us for the task.
Jesus goes on to say, “In a little while the world will no longer see me but you will see me, because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you.” 

God, through the Holy Spirit, will abide in us and we will abide in him.  Abide is one of those words that sound like we ought to understand it, but sometimes leaves us a little confused.  What does it mean to abide?  What does it mean that the spirit abides in us and we in him?

A pastor explained this to me once using a bowl of water and a sponge.  The sponge (representing us) before it enters the water, is hard and dry.  Place it in the bowl of water, and it absorbs the water (representing the spirit).  The water fills it.  The water is in the sponge.  The water abides in it.  In addition, the sponge is in the water.  The sponge abides in the water. 

The point is that the nature of this active love between us and God is that we are in relationship with the creator of the universe.  We can see God and know God.  We can hear the leading of God and act upon it, because God is with us, in the most connected sense.  Perhaps the impossible task of obedience is made more possible through God’s grace in sending us his spirit because we are now connected to him.

Because of that relationship, we know that God is trustworthy.  We know that we are not alone, and we know where God is leading us.  We may not always know our destination, but we know that God knows where he is leading us.  We love him enough to understand the nature of love.  We trust him enough to be obedient.

I was privileged to hear a young man speak about what he hoped would be his future relationship to God.  He compared it to the story of the Walk to Emmaus.  Jesus is walking the road with two believers who have witnessed his death and yet do not yet know of his resurrection.  They know him but they do not recognize him.  The young man said that he hoped that in the future, he would act in such a way that those who knew him would not recognize him, but would only see Jesus in his actions.

Is your love of God evident in your obedience to him?  Is your love of God an active love that spills over into love of your neighbor?  Can others see the nature of love and the nature of God through you?

Are you so obedient to God that you would jump into the deep hole with your friend, and do you trust God enough to know that he jumps in with you?