Love

In today’s gospel reading (John 15:9-17) Jesus says “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love.” I think too often we tend to keep Jesus on the exterior and thereby make “keep[ing] my commandments” as an exterior goal. We think that if we do what is right and follow the commandments will become more Christlike and become more holy. This thought process has things backwards though. We have to let Christ into our hearts first. We need to allow Him to lead us instead of trying to lead ourselves. That’s why we always fail when we try to remain free from sin. We try to do it ourselves instead of dying to Christ and allowing Him to guide our hearts.

In our second reading (1 John 4:7-10) it says that “God is love.” So by allowing love to lead us we are being led by God. If we allow love to lead us we are going to follow those commandments. Jesus says to love another as I have loved you. That’s heavy. We are to love everyone as Jesus loves us. The ONLY way we as finite humans can do that is by allowing Jesus into our hearts and allow Him to lead the way.