He who abides in love abides in God

Revised and re-posted is the Verse of the Day for September 15, 2016 which is found in 1 John 4:16 in the Message Bible:

This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

The King James Version puts it this way:

And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

The Amplified Bible expresses the verse in this manner:

¹⁶ And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.

In 1 John 4:8 we find an expression of who God is:

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Rendered in the Amplified Bible this way:

 He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.

For Christian believers nothing is more satisfying than to know that God is love and that God loves us, and nothing can separate us from that love.

Hillsong offers this reminder that “Our God is Love.”

In John 15:5, 8 NLT  we find parallel scriptures used by Jesus, who speaks of a parable where he uses this comparison:

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

This reference relates to the parable of the vinedresser, the vine, the branches and the fruit. That is, it explained how the Twelve were to produce a spiritual harvest for God.

The passage from John 15 records how Jesus, during the evening when he was betrayed and captured, said to the eleven apostles who remained at the table with him (Judas had departed and gone to betray the Lord), that his Father was a “vinedresser” (grape farmer), or “husbandman” as some translations have it, and that he, Jesus, was “the true vine”, and that those apostles were “branches” who were attached to Jesus, the Vine. In order to be fruitful the branches must “abide” in the vine. When the branches remain intact with the vine, God is glorified as the branches bear much fruit.  When thinking of fruit, the fruit of the spirit comes to mind, and what is the principal fruit of the passage from Galatians 5:22-24? Love, as the Scriptures also remind us.

The accompanying photo shows a fruitful vine from a vineyard that illustrates the parable where Jesus describes himself as “the true vine.”  To conclude Mike Newlin offers another rendition of this metaphor: “I am the Vine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: 1 John 15:5, 1 John 15:8, 1 John 4:16, 1 John 4:8, Galatians 5:22-24, I am the vine, Our God is love