After Jesus shared with His disciples the importance of “Abiding in Him” in the first verses of John 15 (“abide in Me … apart from Me, you can do nothing”, etc.) one might ask, “But HOW do I ‘abide in Him?’”. The answer Jesus gave to that question in :10 may surprise a number of us:

“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.”

This may be surprising to some of those who would follow Christ today. It sounds so “legalistic”: keep His commandments?!  But that is exactly what Jesus says. If you want to abide in Him — in His LOVE — then you must keep His commandments!

This is a good reminder for us: our Lord’s commandments are not something to be just lightly “set aside” in favor of some imaginary “love relationship” we feel like we have with Him, which supercedes His actual commands. No, the truth is, Jesus tells us in :15, that if you love Him, you will not set aside His commandments, but you will “KEEP My commandments”!  Obeying His commandments is vital if we are really going to abide in Him.

So: are you really abiding in Him? Are you walking in His love? It is not just a subjective “feeling” that determines this. The question is: are you keeping His commandments? If you aren’t — and possibly the Lord is bringing one of those commands to mind this moment — then without a doubt you are NOT abiding in Him, no matter what you may “feel” like you are doing!