The true you is the you that feels at peace. For me, a writer, its when I'm writing. For a musician, when they're playing music. For a teacher, when they're teaching. But in order to BE the true you, you have to get past all the surface stuff. All the stuff that the world tells you you're "supposed" to be. I read somewhere that a truly successful adult is just a kid who grew up without losing his dream. And I know that can be hard. Because life is what happens when you're busy making plans. Because bills don't stop coming just because you don't want to go to work. My pastor always says, "Call up the electric company and tell them how much you love Jesus. See how far that gets you." And even the Bible itself says, "...money answereth all things" (Ecclesiastes 10:19). But we were created to do more than just work, pay taxes, and die. We were created as an expression of love by the God who IS love. We were created to receive and release that love, and in that way EXPERIENCE that love. Guys... its all about love. So in order to be the true you, you have to know that you are loved. You have to know that we love because He first loved us. We love HIM because He first loved us. We love Him BY loving each other. And then, once we have that fundamental truth--the ultimate truth of the universe--settled in our minds (HIS mind. The mind of Christ), then we we do whatever it is that we were put here to do. We can do it because its in our heart to do it. I gotta tell you, when I see people excited about something, it really gets ME excited. Because so much of the time we let the world beat that out of us. People who play open mic nights on the weekend or after their day job is over. People who never give up on their dreams. People who don't do it for the money, but do it because they love doing it. What's inside you WILL come out. Or, I should say, what you BELIEVE is inside you WILL come out. That's how powerful faith is. And that's why Jesus said, "...Have faith in God" (Mark 11:22). Have faith in God. God is love. Have faith in love. Have faith that the thing that God put in your heart to do is... well... doable. Look at Philippians 2:13, "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." God put that thing in your heart. He put the will (and where there's a will, there's a way), and He put the power to do (see?). Moses didn't think he could do what God told him to do. But he could. And he did. He just had to trust God, and be his true self. Same with most of the mighty men in the Bible. It seems like the one time God picked a "prototypical" leader it was King Saul. And that was kind of a disaster. Because what the people needed was the shepherd boy. They needed someone with enough courage and strength to be HIMSELF, not to try to be what the world thought he should be. One of the main thrusts of my ministry is... don't try to be someone you're not. Be yourself. Embrace yourself. Find out who you are (by finding out who Jesus is--God in the flesh, love in a body... God in YOUR flesh, love in YOUR body) and BE who you are. Let what's inside come out by knowing and believing that its in there. Don't try to serve two masters. Take care of business, pay your bills. Yes. If you don't work you don't eat. But don't sell your soul either. Do what you do because its in your heart to do it. If you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life. You'll LIVE every day of your life. Truly live. As the true you!

When the inner man comes out... when the hidden man of the heart is revealed TO you, and IN you, and THROUGH you, and AS you... that's when you BE transformed (into what you've already BEEN transformed into). By the renewing of your mind. By letting the mind of Christ--again, that's already in you--BE in you. Its the difference between being conformed to the world, letting the world tell you who you, and simply being who you really are by letting the Holy Spirit lead and guide you into all truth. The truth of who you are. Who your heavenly Father is. Who you are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in you. That's how we let the mind of Christ (that's already in us) BE in us. We stop trying to make things "make sense" in the natural and we keep ourselves open to love. That's how you guard your heart; not by shutting it down, but by keeping it open. That's HOW the hidden man of the heart is revealed... God loves us to overflowing and that love comes out of us. Naturally. We receive it, and release it. We receive it... BY releasing it. Stepping out in faith is stepping out in love. Giving people a chance to NOT let us down... and then loving them anyway even if they do. That's the true you. Someone who is loved... and because of that love, someone who IS love! That's our new nature. Our TRUE nature. The love nature. That's why we were created; to be loved, and to love one another with that same love. And I thought I was going to spend the whole Rant today on what comes next, but I just wanted to try to hammer my bigger point home one more time. Ok. Here's what comes next: The true you is NOT a religious robot. The true you is what happens when you stop trying to be someone you're not and simply embrace who you are. When you do whatever it is that is in your heart. For a musician... playing music makes them... THEM. For me... writing makes me... me. But it wasn't until I stopped writing what my grandma referred to as, "garbage" (general fiction, in my opinion), and started writing about Jesus that things exploded. So my point is... be who you are. ALWAYS be who you are. Because you are fearfully and wonderfully made. God made you specifically YOU for a reason. Just do whatever you do with love. Do it because its in your heart to do it. Don't do things because you think you're obligated to do them. Romans 13:8 says, "Owe no man any thing, but to love on another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." And I can see that last part two ways, because Jesus said loving God and loving your neighbor is the whole deal of the Law of Moses. But love is ALSO the perfect law of liberty. Freedom FROM sin and death... and freedom TO live and love. Because to live IS to love and to love is to live. We can't have one without the other, and we can't DO one without the other because they are the same thing. And in order to be your true you, you must be able to truly live. Not letting worry of the future, or the mistakes of the past, keep you from living... but letting what's inside come out because you know and believe that its in there. Because you listen to the voice of truth. Because you let God love you. That's the true God. And that's how He expresses Himself to us, and in us, and through us, and as us!

When you know who you are, you can BE who you are. Because when you know who you are you don't need to try to be someone you're not. And that's why the affirmation and acceptance of the Father is so important; the affirmation and acceptance of the Father equips and empowers you to be who you really are. Which is the Son. Which is Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. The true you. I think its powerful that when Jesus was baptized, "...the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my Beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). And then immediately after that Jesus was driven into the wilderness and tempted of Satan. But no matter what the accuser, the serpent, the liar, said... Jesus was able to hold onto that truth. He knew who He really was. And because of that, nothing bothered Him. When you know the truth, its easy to ignore the lie. The truth sets you free and makes you free. When God arises His enemies are scattered. When the light shines the darkness flees. When you know who you are... because your Father told you who you are... because faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word of God... you can BE who you are. Because you know it, and believe it. Then the slave mentality of trying to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow turns into a servant mentality... because you know you're a Son. Jesus said, "For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister..." (Mark 10:45). He was a Son with a servant's heart. He knelt down and washed His disciples' feet. He didn't need to prove Himself to anybody. He knew who He was. In the book of John Jesus says over and over, "I AM." Which is a direct reference to when Moses asked God who He was and God said, "I AM THAT I AM" (Exodus 3:14). Jesus knew exactly who He was. So He didn't have to try to be someone He wasn't. No matter what anybody else said, He was secure in His identity. He lived from the inside out, because He knew He was in the Father, and the Father was in Him. He was in LOVE, and LOVE was in Him. That's what it means to be God in the flesh... it means the Word (which is Jesus, which is love) became flesh and dwelt among us. Then, through the cross, the Word took it a step further and took up abode WITHIN us. The Word made flesh is love in action. Charity. And now that the Word dwells within us, and we dwell within Him, whenever WE act in love the Word is made flesh... through us. Whenever we love one another we manifest our true selves. We be who we are. By letting what's inside come out. Walking by faith (in God... in love) and LIVING by faith (in God... in love). Love is what makes life WORTH living. And love is what makes is POSSIBLE to truly live. I know a lot of people who are just kind of going through the motions. "Alive" but not really LIVING. The walking dead. That's what Adam became when he ate of the tree of death and died. But Jesus drew us out of Adam and into Himself. Jesus came that we might have LIFE and have it more abundantly. And what makes life abundant... is love. That's the true you. You are LOVED, and because you are LOVED, you CAN love. Because you ARE loved... you are LOVE!

You are not what people call you. But you ARE what you answer to. That's why its so important to know who you are. Who you REALLY are. Who you are in Christ. Which is who Christ is in you. Its basically what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:24 (NLT), "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money." And by "money" I think we can agree that the other master is the world. Because while money might not be ALL the world cares about, it certainly seems to be what the world cares about the most. And here's the tragic part... even though the world screams in our faces, telling us what's wrong with us and demanding that we be someone we're not... its really easy to be devoted to that. To spend (WASTE) our whole lives trying to fit into that box. Trying to be someone we're not in order to get the approval that is dangled like a carrot on the end of a stick. The problem, of course, is that you can never get the carrot. Because the stick always moves just a little bit further away at the last minute. Jesus spoke to this idea too. "The man replied, 'I've obeyed all these commandments since I was young.' When Jesus heard his answer, he said, 'There is still one thing you haven't done. Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.' But when the man heard this he became very sad, for he was very rich" (Luke 18:21-23 NLT). The KJV puts it like this, "...Yet lackest thou one thing..." When you're trying to be someone you're not, in order to get something that you think you haven't got, there is always one thing you lack. You can obey all of the external commandments, and try your best to be who the world wants you to be, but it will never give you what you're looking for. Because what you're looking for isn't in the world. It is in YOU. Its the inner man. The hidden man of the heart. That acceptance that the world dangles in front of you, but never quite lets you get, is the acceptance that Jesus GAVE when He opened His arms wide on the cross and wrapped you in His loving embrace. He said, "I love you just the way you are. And I would rather die than be without you." That's true love. And that's what we have already been given. That's the gift of God. Eternal life. Knowing the Father in the context of being His beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. Knowing that you are exactly who you are supposed to be. Not some glad morning when you (somehow) make yourself better. But right now. The problem isn't who you are. The problem is who you BELIEVE you are. When you let the world define you... when you let your past hold you down and hold you back... when you do things for money because you think that's as good as its going to get... that's when you lose your true self. You believe the lie. And, in a twisted way, you start to love the lie. You think it makes sense. You become devoted to it. There's a line in a movie that goes something like this, "They treated him like a monster, so he started to act like one." That's what happens when that's all you hear. But there's a more excellent way. The other choice. Not what the world is screaming at you, but what the still, small voice of God is whispering inside you with every beat of His heart in your chest. The voice of truth saying, "I love you... I love you... I love you..."

There's a lot of stuff on the surface. A lot of stuff that life has piled up on us. And a lot of the time that's all we see. Because its on the surface. Right there in our face. Staring at us. Mocking us. Daring us to defy it. But there's also something deep down inside. Ephesians 3:16 refers to it as the inner man. 1 Peter 3:4 uses the term, "hidden man of the heart." In a word, its Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. It--HE--is the true you. And here's where religion (and most of our relationships, if we're being honest) seems to miss the point: If you claim to love somebody, but are constantly trying to change them, then you don't really love THEM at all. You love whatever your idea of who you think they SHOULD BE is. And I'm convinced that that's why so many relationships fail--we don't accept people as they are. We try to make them be someone we're not. And that's why religion doesn't work either; because under religion's external behavior modifying laws we are not allowed to be ourselves. Guys. "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). And here's the key: Where the Spirit of the Lord is. Right? And here's where the Spirit of the Lord is... He is in you! So in YOU there is liberty! Freedom! Freedom FROM sin and death. And freedom TO live and love! Freedom to be yourself. Your true self. The real you. The one that the Word of the Lord (which is Jesus, which is love) says you are. Not the lie that the world screams in your face and tries to bury you under. The still, small voice of God speaking with every beat of His heart in your chest is what sets us free and makes us free. Because that voice only says one thing. God has only ever needed one Word. He says, "I love you," with every beat of His heart in your chest. "I love you, I love you, I love you." That's how the Spirit strengthens us in the inner man. That's how the hidden man of the heart stops being hidden. And that's how you can stop trying to be someone you're not and embrace who you really are. You can stop looking down on yourself. You can stop letting that surface stuff define you. We all have things we don't like about ourselves. But guess what, self-condemnation falls under the umbrella of NO condemnation for those in Christ. And you're in Christ because Christ is in you. That Spirit that brings liberty again. So you don't have to struggle, and suffer, and drag the corpse of the old man around anymore. Your past is just that. Its past. Its over and done with. Learn from it, grow a little bit because of it, and move on. Lay aside the weight, and the sin (the unbelief, the lie) that so easily besets you. Let the voice of truth lead and guide you into ALL truth. Because the more you find out who Jesus is (again, God in the flesh, love in a body) the more you find out who you really are. And when you KNOW who you really are you can BE who you really are. And--and this is going to be a big focus of this Rant series, I think--while you (and others) are learning who you really are (and who they, themselves) really are... we can give ourselves (and each) the space, and the liberty, to learn and grow. To make mistakes. To let the true you come out. With baby steps. A little here and a little there. Until the gardner can reveal that He pruned away everything that didn't belong 2,000 years ago. He got ride of everything except Himself. Except love. Except... you!

All I want to say today is: "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18). And specifically all I want to say is, "There is no fear in love." Love is a safe place. And it seems horribly ironic to me that we, as humans, are terrified of being in love even though it the deepest desire that we, as humans, have. Its like we want it so badly that we don't believe we could actually have it. So even though we DO have it, we have a hard time remaining in it. I've been using the illustration of picking flower petals, "He loves me, He loves me not," but really its more like we think someone is going to snatch the whole flower away from us. We think, "There's no way He could possibly love me." When the truth of the matter is... He IS love. Love is not just what God does, it is literally who He is. In order for God to stop loving you, He would have to stop being God. And even if that COULD happen (which I don't think it could) it wouldn't. God loves you so much that He gave His only begotten Son. So that you could experience life AS a Son. He gave you His Spirit--the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth that leads and guides us into all truth--so that you could KNOW and BELIEVE His love. That's what the Holy Spirit is; He is our love receptor. That is the truth that He leads and guides us into; the ultimate truth of the universe that says, "God is love. And He loves you." That's the Gospel, as simply as I can put it. But the tricky part is remaining in that love. Receiving it. And releasing it. The trick, of course, is that we receive it BY releasing it. We remain in God's love... by loving. We love Him by loving each other with the love that He first loved us with. So we have to get past the scary part to get to the perfect part. And that's where faith comes in. But don't mistake faith and hope. Hoping for love is terrifying, because then we're back to, "It might happen... it might not happen." But faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. Faith comes from someone (Jesus, love) proving Himself faithful. Jesus TOLD us what love is (laying your life down for your friends) and then He went to the cross and did it. He gave us something (someONE, Himself, love) to believe in. So that we don't have to be afraid. If there's anything in life that you CAN trust... its love. Because love never fails. Because love endures. There is no fear in love because once you're in... you're in. God moved into the neighborhood, and He's never moving out. Because He likes it where He's at. Its like the love slave that has his ear nailed to the door because he knows how good it is in his master's house, and there's nowhere else he'd rather be. That's when love is perfect... when you know who you are, where you are, and why you're here. That's why I wrote the Answer Trilogy, because those are three very important questions. And when you don't know the answers, they are three terrifying questions. So here's the answers: We are Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in OUR flesh. Love in OUR body. We are IN the Kingdom, and we ARE the Kingdom. And we are here to be loved and to love each other. When you get down to that most basic level, and you understand that He FIRST loved us (so we have everything we need), there is nothing to fear. There is no fear in love. There is only... love. And that's what its all about!

I think one of the biggest--if not THE biggest--keys to life is showing up. Life is a participation sport. And a lot of the time it seems like we miss it. Because we're too busy trying to earn a gift... or because we're afraid to experience the gift we've been given. We think its too good to be true. So we don't trust it. We run FROM God (love) instead of running TO Him. Even though He (love) is our deepest desire. We want more than anything to be loved, and to remain in that love. But the world has knocked us down so many times that we start to lose the desire (or the ability) to get back up and keep trying. We get burned, and then we decide that in order to prevent that from ever happening again we need to stay as far away from the fire as possible. Even though, in truth, GOD is the consuming fire. And if someone burns you, that says everything about THEM and nothing about YOU. Chances are you just happened to be in the way. But it still hurts. And nobody likes to be hurt. So we build walls around ourselves. Around our hearts. And we think that's how we guard, or keep, our hearts. Keep them safe. Keep them from harm. The problem with that thinking, though, is that to live is to love and to love is to live. If you're not open to love then you're walking dead. Going through the motions. Robbing yourself of the gift you've been given. And that's tragic. Because Jesus came to GIVE us LIFE. And that more abundantly. In the Message Bible John 10:10 reads like this, "A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." To me this verse (and all the rest of the Bible, quite honestly) is about love. Because at the end of the day that IS the desire of our heart. Love is what makes the abundant life abundant. Love is what makes life better than we ever dreamed of. And watch this: Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." The power that worketh in us is Jesus. God in the flesh. Love in a body. God in YOUR flesh. Love in YOUR body. The power that worketh in us... is love. And that's how Jesus is able to do exceeding abundantly above anything we could ask for or even think about. Through His love. A love that has already been freely given, and simply needs to be received and released. In order to experience that gift... we have to share it. Because love is giving. When you give love, you experience love. When you love others... you remain in the love of God. Nothing can separate us from that love. But in order to truly live the everlasting, eternal, abundant, Resurrection Life of Christ we must let HIM live His own life (of love) in us, and through us, and as us. We must show up. We must stand firm no matter how hard, or how many times life tries to knock us down. And if life DOES knock us down, we get back up. We endure. We remain. We stand ON something, and we stand FOR something. We stand ON the Rock that is our foundation. And we stand FOR love. Living and loving don't just go hand in hand. Living and loving are same thing. So be open to love. Its not too good to be true. Its THE truth. Its so good it must be true!

The Kingdom of God (the Kingdom of LOVE) is upside down and backwards to the natural mind. Things that seem too good to be true... are actually so good that they MUST be true. But a lot of the time it seems like we refuse to believe our eyes. We lose the simplicity that is the Gospel; God is love, and He loves you. We make things too hard on ourselves, and we end up robbing ourselves of the gift we've been given. Look at this story in 2 Kings chapter 5, because I think it makes my point better than I can. Ok, so there's this fellow named Naaman. And he has leprosy. He goes to Elisha, the man of God, to be healed. "ANd Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the LORD his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have not it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?" (2 Kings 5:10-13). Wash and be clean. Pretty simple. Love in order to remain in God's love. But we think there's gotta be something more to it than that. We think we need to earn the gift of God. But you can't earn a gift. No matter how hard you try. That's the lie that the serpent hissed into Eve's ear--you have to do in order to be. You have to work and earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. Jesus came and sweated great drops of blood to show is that its not about what you do. Its about who you are. Its in the blood. In the genes. The DNA (Divine Nature of the Almighty). So when Jesus says things like, "Have faith in God," or, "Love one another as I have loved you," He's not only telling us what to do... He's telling us HOW to do it. He's making it really simple. Even though it seems upside down and backwards. The natural mind says: I'm going to do what I do and that's going to determine what I get. The mind of Christ says, "I am God's beloved Son in whom He is well pleased. I'm going to do what I do because of who I am." We don't do in order to be. We do BECAUSE we be. We don't love in order to GET love. We love because we HAVE love. Because we ARE loved. Because we are LOVE. Love is our nature. And we experience it by giving it away. Because love IS giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving. So in order to remain we need to understand two things: 1. We are already in God's love. Because His love is already in us. Its not something to get. Its something we've already got. And 2. In order to experience the gift we've been given, we need to give it away. We need to share it. We need to receive it and release it. Receive it BY releasing it. That's where we are, and that's how we REMAIN where we are. We live in God because He lives in us. We LOVE because His love remains in us even when we give it away. ESPECIALLY when we give it away!

We remain in God's love by loving people. That's the commandment--the NEW commandment for the New Man--that Jesus gave. And He didn't just give the command, He also gave us the ability to obey that command. Love one another... as Jesus loves us. We don't have to--and thank God, because we can't--do it in our own strength and power. We don't have to--and thank God, because we can't--earn anything. We don't have to DO anything in order to BE loved. But because we ARE loved... we CAN do anything. We can LIVE. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. God wanted us to experience, or stand, or remain, or abide, in His love... so He gave it to us. He wanted us to experience, or stand, or remain, or abide, in HIM. He wanted us to have His life... so He gave it to us. So that we could enjoy that gift of God as He lives His own abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life in us, and through us, and as us. Unfortunately, we've kind of gotten to the place where we think its plucking flower petals. We think God's love for us depends on our actions. We think the smallest thing can disqualify us, or separate us, from God's love. Because we think of that love as too good to be true. And we see ourselves as unworthy of it. That's why love must be given away; because if you think you need to GET something... even if you do it'll never be enough. Under that economy, or covenant, there is always one thing you lack. Its like... people sometimes ask me what my favorite book is. And I always say, "The next one." That's not a title of a book, that's my unquenchable appetite FOR books. I read one and then I move on to the next one. That seems to be how we think God deals with us--He loves us for a while and then moves on to someone else. Like, if we have a really good day... God must have smiled on us that day. And I'm not saying He didn't. We are His beloved Son(s) in whom He is well pleased. I believe He smiles on us everyday. My point is... a good day doesn't mean you're loved any more than a bad day means you're not loved. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike, right? Life happens to us all. Good days come and go. But God's love doesn't. It has always been, and it will always be. In Revelation 21:3 in the Message Bible we read, "I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: 'Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God.'" And I believe that the entire book of Revelation is an in-depth look at the cross. So on the cross, when God reconciled us back to Himself, He moved into the neighborhood. God WITH us became God WITHIN us. He moved in, and He's never moving out. Because He's right where He needs to be. Right where He WANTS to be. I believe our God is a happy God because He got exactly what He wanted: US! We're His people. He's our God. And since He's never moving out--since He has taken up abode in us--we don't have to worry about there ever being a "He loves me not" situation. Guys. Love never fails. Because it (HE) endures. Love remains. No matter what else happens... God is love. And He loves you. That's the bottom line. And the top line. The Alpha and the Omega. The beginning and the end. And everything in between. He remains in us by loving us. And we remain in Him by loving Him back by loving each other!

I think this is an important concept, because it seems like people think love is conditional... like there's a flower and we're picking the petals off. "God loves me... He loves me not..." And we think those flower petals are our actions. "I mess up... and He loves me not." And its like we're just hoping and praying we end up on "He loves me." I'm here to tell you that that is NOT how love works. Love is unconditional. The Apostle Paul wrote a whole piece about how nothing--NOTHING--can separate us from the love of Christ. But there's a difference between "knowing" something, and KNOWING it. The difference between head knowledge and heart knowledge. We sing, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." And that's not a bad place to start, because faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the Word of God. But what we need to learn how to do is ABIDE in His love. Trust His love. Wrap ourselves up in it and let it not just be a PART of our life... but let it BE our life. Because to live is to love and to love is to live. Love IS life. Look at John 15:4 in the NLT, "Remain in me, and I will reamin in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me." I think that's the key: REMAINING in Him, even as He remains in us. Getting rid of the "He loves me, He loves me not" mindset. And getting to the place where we can rest in His love. In the King James version of the Bible John 15:4 uses the word, "abide." It is number 3306 in Strong's Greek Concordance and it literally means, "to stay. Continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry." This same word is used a few verses later in John 15:10. Which also tells us HOW to abide, or stand, or remain, in God's love. "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." And then, just so there's NO question about what that commandment is, Jesus goes on to say, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you" (John 15:12). And then He says it again a few verses after that, "These things I command you, that ye love one another" (John 15:17). My point is... in the Old Covenant there was an external law filled with dos and don'ts. The ten commandments. But Jesus IS the New Covenant. And He has one commandment: Receive and release His love. So, I think these dots are easy to connect: Jesus said we cannot be fruitful unless we abide in Him. And then He said in order to abide in Him we have to obey His commandment. And then He said His commandment is to love others as He loves us. So in order to abide, or remain, in God's love... we simply need to give it away. We remain in His love... by loving each other. And we love God by loving each other. He loved us first and all we have to do is return it to Him by giving it to each other. Receive it and release it. And I'm convinced that that is the best way to FEEL love. Not by what you get, but by what you give. Because you can't give what you don't have. So if you give love... that means that you know and believe (at least on some level) that you HAVE love. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but in order to remain in God's love you have to give it away. To the natural mind that's backwards. But... love IS giving. God gave us His only begotten Son. Jesus gave His life for us, and to us. And now that we know that we ARE loved... we CAN love. We can stand in Him. Abide in Him. Remain in Him!