Jesus says in John 14:15-17, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”
“If you love me you will keep my commandments.” And what are the commandments of Jesus? The Great Commandment and the New Commandment. When we love God with our “all” it is a self-surrender to the One in whose image and likeness I’m created; and I find an anointing to love and accept the unique “me”, which in turn empowers to love and accept the unique you. This life is lived in the eternal flow of the abundant life Jesus proclaims He came to give.
Father Richard Rohr writes, “Your life is not about you; you are about Life. You are an instance of a universal, and even eternal, pattern. . . . This realization is an earthquake in the brain, a hurricane in the heart, and a monumental shift in consciousness. Yet most of us do not seem interested in it. It is too big to imagine and can only be revealed slowly: You have never been separate from God except in your mind. . . Life in the spirit will feel like being caught much more than being taught about any particular doctrine. Henceforth, your very motivation and momentum for the journey toward holiness and wholeness is simply immense gratitude – for already being there!”
“Your life is not about you; You are about life.” . . . It is in this experiential knowledge of the forever presence of the Holy Spirit that we find a “Oneing” with our creator – Unequivocally entering the eternal flow of God’s love – Jesus says: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
Through Christ,
Pastor Doug