Our Instruction To 'Love'

 It is during this post-Cross period that we who are saved by grace through faith in Christ are commanded to fulfil Our Instruction To 'Love' in the same selfless way that Christ loved us. So exalted is Christ's new command to Christians, that it surpasses our human understanding and is a human impossibility unless we abide in Him and He in us, without Christ we can do nothing. We are wretched men and women indeed if we seek to carry out this command (or indeed any of God's commandments) in our own strength. Jesus said, "Without Me you can do nothing," but thank God that we can do all things through Christ, Who enables us.
We are to be saved by grace through faith, and then live by grace through faith in Christ (abide in Him and He in us) in order to be able to love as Christ loved and thus fulfil His commands.
 In John 15, he explains how to obey the commandments of Christ. We are to abide in Christ: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in them, they will bare much spiritual fruit (godly love), apart from Me you can do nothing. Apart from me You cannot love as I have loved and the one who does this, abides in Him and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit Whom He has given us."
1 John 3:23 And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.

Our United Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank You that even while we were sinners, Christ died for us and by believing in His name, we have been brought into Your family. We pray that we may learn to abide in Christ and He in us so that we may love as Christ loved and bring forth the fruit of love in our lives, for God and for others. This we ask in Jesus' name, AMEN.