"I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done—kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.
"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.
"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.
John 15:9-15
Jesus tells us here that that specific thing that we should be wholly mature in is the joy of God. Imagine begin wholly mature with the joy of God! How do we do this? How to we become exclusively, solely, fully developed in the joy of God? I love the definition of mature that says to "work it out fully in the mind." Do we understand how to love as Jesus loved? Do we understand the purpose we are here for - to be joyful, cheerful. We find this kind of joy through loving of others the way we have been loved by our God. This is the way of Jesus. To be wholly mature we are no longer servants of God, but friends of God. We understand the "secret" to living. We understand that the secret to life is to love and when we love this way we find joy.
However to "make ourselves at home in his love," we need to practice thinking and serving like Jesus. We must fully work out in our mind what it means to truly love. We must fully work out in our mind all the things that would hold us back from loving. We must understand our anger, our frustrations, our worries, our fears, and be able to trust completely the loving, caring God. We must understand that commands are not about doing right and wrong, they are about uderstanding the mind of God and how to love as God loves.
Be wholly mature today. Be completely and totally developed in loving like Jesus. Be God's friend and not just a servant. Be like Jesus in your thinking, have the mind of God. Understand the commands and you understand the mind of God. This takes more than a reading of them to gain understanding. It takes a full working out of them in practice and in the mind. It takes practice to fully develop them into habits that impact your life and lead to the love of all those around you. It takes practice to become a fully "ripe" or "seasoned" at anything you do. the same is true of your spiritual life. It takes practice. It takes silence. It takes acting out what you have learned. It takes feedback from people who care. It takes openness of your heart. There is no way to be ripe in God's love, to be at home in God's love, unless you fully develop yourself through practice and thought. Start practicing so that you will be wholly mature in the joy of God!
Namaste'
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