9 "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11  "These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

1Pe 1:22  Since you have purified your souls in/by obeying the truth through the Spirit in/for/eis a sincere love of the brethren,

love one another fervently with a pure heart,

A. Satan’s oldest lie that many still fall for is that God isn’t concerned about our happiness, joy, desires and delight.

B. The path to happiness is holiness, to exaltation...submission, to freedom...obedience, to life...death.

C. Love is loyally doing what is in another’s best interest, at the expense of yourself. If we fail to purify our souls/values/desires, we won’t be able to Biblically love, but will rather use people to validate our worth, or boost our self esteem or sense of well-being.

Q5. Why do we need obedience in order to manifest Christ’s kind of love? How does obedience purify? Who does the purifying?

Q6. If your joy meter is not on full, why not? Either God isn’t doing His job, or you aren’t doing yours.

12  "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

13 "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

14  "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15  "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

A. We can’t be obeying Christ, nor abiding in Him, nor bearing fruit, unless we are sacrificing our time and desires for other believers.

B. We progress from indifferent enemies, to servants, to friends, to brothers as we abide in Christ. No abiding, no progression nor intimacy.

C. “ To abide in Christ is,  on the one hand,  to have no known sin unjudged and unconfessed,  no interest into which He is not brought,  no life which He cannot share.  On the

 other hand,  the abiding one takes all burdens to Him,  and draws all wisdom,  life and strength from Him. It is not unceasing consciousness of these things, and of Him, but that nothing is allowed in the life which separates from Him.”  -Scofield

D. As we seek to obey and abide (our motivation and nourishment drawn from Christ in prayer) we will continually manifest enduring love.

Q7. How are you giving yourself for the benefit of other members of the Body, for the corporate Body? What’s the tension?

Q8. How can we maintain consistency in manifesting Christlike character and love? What does prayer have to do with fruit and love?

16  "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.  17  "These things I command you, that you love one another.

A. God’s purpose in saving us is to glorify Him, through fruitful Christlike words and works in our spheres of influence. (Eph 2:8-10)

B. Believers don’t bear fruit because of dirt (sin), avoiding the light, lack of submission to pruning, half-hearted obedience, and Mk 4:19 the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

Q9.  How do you think God plans to use you to bear fruit and glorify Him in your workplace? What could prevent that from happening?

18 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19  "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20  "Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21  "But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

22  "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23  "He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24  "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25  "But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

A. Exclusive to Jesus Christ engenders the wrath of the world. The more we are like Christ, the more we will be different and disliked.

B. Those religious folks who object to Truth obeying and speaking hate the true God and are sinfully serving Satan.

C. We are to be in (interaction) the world, but not of (motivation and nourishment) the world.

Q10. How can you tell if someone is of the world or not? What do worldly motivations and nourishments look like?

26 "But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27  "And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

A. As a result of the Spirit of Truth in our lives, we will embrace Truth in our thoughts, and manifest Truth in our daily actions.

B. A witness tells of what they’ve seen, heard or experienced. Fruitful believers testify to the workings of the Truth in their lives.

Q11. Would you ever be termed a fanatic about sharing your faith? Were you ever hated or ridiculed? Why/Why not? Is that a good or bad thing?

Q12. How would your co-workers/roommate observe that you’ve been with Jesus? How would they see Truth in your actions/reactions this past week.

Q13. On the basis of your obedience, abiding, fruitfulness, loyal love, prayerfulness, and witness, would you be called a friend of Jesus?