See the importance of a relationship with Jesus Christ? If we believe that He is our Lord then we will obey what He says and we will seek Him for our strength and joy. The best part of this is that God’s word will help us in every area of our lives and the Holy Spirit will be there to guide us through every obstacle. Look at verses 9-11 which say, “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in His love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”
Jesus is letting His disciples know how important it is for them to do what they see Him doing and when they step out of their own power the joy will be overflowing and their witness will be fruitful. God is not interested in making people love Him, He is interested in people choosing to love Him and then being so in love that they do what they see from God and then people come because they see truth. When we obey His commandments we are imitating Jesus because that is what He did with the Father. When we do this we are showing that we love Him and don’t care what happens to us because we are living for God not ourselves.
When we have our heart in tune with Jesus and our branch is connected to the vine we feel the love of God and we focus only on sharing His love with others. This makes God pleased because it opens the hearts of people and they show a love that only can come from the one who is love. In verse 13 Jesus says, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus endured the worst beating and it was worth it because He loved the Father so much He didn’t focus on Himself. God is looking for that kind of love from us, that no matter what is going on in our lives we get our power from Jesus Christ and we listen to the Holy Spirit as we live in this world.
This will show the un-churched there is a God and that in Christ there is power. As we seek wisdom and understanding and we are faithful with what we learn even more will be given; so I say never be satisfied with what you know and always ask God to show you things that you can use to help show your love to Him and others. Our home is set for us in heaven so we need to live as though we believe that and not get caught up in the things of this world but shine because we are attached to the vine that brings life. Amen