How to Abide in God’s Love

He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.

John 8:29

Neither Faith nor Works will keep you in God’s Love

in their setting of their threshold by My threshold, and their door-post beside My door-post, there was the wall between Me and them.

Ezekiel 43:8

Since Martin Luther and the Reformation, many Protestant Evangelical Christians have focused on the significance of faith for salvation.

Without a doubt, salvation is by grace, through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9), but faith does not put you in the love of God. In fact, Martin Luther, himself, struggled with great uncertainty in the final days of his life.

Why?

Because faith cannot put you in God’s love. The Apostle James told us that “even the devils believe, and tremble” (James 2:19).

James said that faith without works is dead. But works too, are unable to put us in the love of God.

Jesus said “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will say to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessless!” (Matthew 7:22-23)

Of course, the skeptic might say, “would it not have been better that I did not discover God’s will, that I might not have been made guilty by it?” But the one who loves the Father, seeks to know His will.

In the Bosom of the Father

John described Christ as, “the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18). His meaning of “bosom” is clear in John 13:23. The disciple who Jesus loved was “in His bosom,” in His love. John called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 20:2). In John 15:10, Jesus told us that we would abide in His love if we keep His commandments “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.”

In his first Epistle, John wrote,

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:

1 John 2:3-5

And again, he writes, “by this we know that the love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.” (1 John 5:2-3).

We must keep the commandments of God, and the commandments of Christ. Jesus said, “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” (John 14:23).

Prayer in the Holy Spirit keeps us in the love of God

The Holy Spirit, which God has given to those who obey Him.

Acts 5:32

The Spirit of God is only received by those who obey Him.

The Sons of God keep themselves in God’s love through prayer. The Apostle Jude told us to pray in the Holy Spirit always, keeping ourselves in the love of God (Jude 1:20-21).

Prayer in the Holy Spirit keeps us in constant communion with God. This is the communion that was lost, when we were driven from the garden. John called this Spirit “a pure river of water of life” (Revelation 22:1). The Spirit of God will abide with us forever (John 14:16).

Remember My Death

The earth shall answer with grain, with new wine, and with oil, they shall answer Jezreel

Hosea 2:22

Jesus said, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you” (John 6:53); “this do, as often as you eat (and drink) in remembrance of Me” (1 Corinthians 11:24-25).

The continual remembrance of Christ’s death, is the continual reminder of God’s love for us. The Apostle Paul wrote, “the love of Christ compels us because we judge that one died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:14).

Communion with God is through the grain, the wine and the oil – through the body and blood of Christ and through prayer in the Holy Spirit. When we keep God’s commandments, confess our sins, and devote ourselves to these things, we will keep ourselves in the love of God.

Our Enemy

Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’

Genesis 3:1

The war of Satan was against those “who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 12:17).

Satan’s aim is to keep us out the garden, out of the love of God. In the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul warned us not to follow after any other gospel, “you observe days, months, seasons and years, I am afraid for you, lest I have labored for you in vain” (Galatians 4:10-11). Jesus called the Gentiles who observed these days, “a synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9; 3:9).

Jesus died so that we could have a relationship with God in the Holy Spirit. Paul said, “having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect in the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). Eventually, the Gentiles made their own religious own days that would distance them from a true relationship with God. The creation of the “Lord’s Day” caused the Gentiles to break the commandment of God, severing any possibility of a relationship with God in the Holy Spirit.

Today, “those who have victory over the beast, over his mark, and over the number of his name (are) standing on a sea of glass, holding the harps of God” (Revelation 15:2). The sea of glass represents baptism, and the harps of God represent prayer in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:7).