Abide in love

Intro:

When a child loves his parent, and the parent is teaching the child, love oils the wheels of the intellectual powers, and furnishes a motive power to conquer the lesson. And when the parent feels that he is loved by his child and pupil, the love is a present reward. There is such a love between Christ and His disciples. Peter appealed to Christ’s consciousness of being loved by him when he said, “Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee” (John 21:17). And Christ loves His pupils. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you” (John 15:9, 13). This mutual love imparts patience on the one side and perseverance on the other. It was Christ’s “first love to us” that gave Him patience to “endure the cross and despise the shame” (Heb. 12:2). And it is the responsive love of the disciple that enables Him to endure unto the end. It is the love that is born of the consciousness of being loved that stirs up to the diligent seeking of the latter clause of the verse, which expresses—1