Live to Love Scripture Encouragement

John 15:12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Today’s verse, confirms all that Jesus had said to His disciples. He loved them like the Father has loved Him. To insure that they and all disciples yet to be born may understand that they have been called to a new purpose by the love of God, Jesus repeated the new commandment. It is our highest good to know t...

John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. Here the disciples receive the reason for all that Jesus had said and done that evening, recorded in John 13:4 to now. The glory of God is His love revealed in His Son. And how is that love most glorified and revealed? That the love the Father has for His Son and the Son has for the Fathe...

John 15:10 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. In this verse we learn an astounding lesson about the love of the Father for His Son and the Son’s love for us. Love, the sustained direction of the will toward the highest good of another, no matter what the cost, expressed that love by giving a command to love. H...

John 15:9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. Love has lost its meaning today. The love of which Jesus spoke may be defined as the sustained direction of the will toward the highest good of another, no matter what the cost. Jesus told His disciples that He has loved them just as the Father had loved Him. What did He mean “just as” the Father loved Him. How did...

John 15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Here Jesus reveals His passion, the passion of the vine—namely, the glory of His Father. How vital it is for His disciples to understand that their lives have one holy purpose, that is to bring glory to the vinedresser by bearing much fruit. The fruit, of course, is His love. We must be careful not...

John 15:7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. Let’s look at this verse from the perspective of a branch united to the vine. What would the branch ask of the vine? Wouldn’t a branch that has the life of the vine running through its veins wish only one thing? To bear fruit? It draws upon the resources of the vine so that more fruit can b...

John 15:6 If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. What would you think about a vinedresser that left dead branches on the vine or when removed left an unsightly pile of dried up branches in his vineyard? Would you consider him lazy or sloppy? You certainly wouldn’t think well of him. Would yo...

John 15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. Jesus is life. Everything that isn’t flowing out of Him is dead. He is the vine. we are nothing more than branches. We don’t do the fruit-bearing, the loving, Jesus does the fruit-bearing and the loving. The branch doesn’t bear much fruit of itself. It’s impos...

John 15:4. “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.” Abide is the word Jesus used to describe the dynamic relationship between Himself and fruitful branches. They live or dwell in Him, and He dwells or lives in them. The verb tense of abide describes the resulting action of something that happened...

John 15:3. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” In effect, Jesus told His disciples that they were ready to bear fruit for God because of what He had told them. Let’s be encouraged and pruned with those words. 1. First, told them everything He was doing was so the Father would be glorified in the Son. 13:31-32. 2. Second, He called them to live to love with Him f...

John 15:2-3. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” I want to encourage you today with the words of Jesus that prune us, the words that sanctify or clean us so that we can bear more fruit. If we didn’t stop and look back at tho...

John 15:2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” The vine dresser, the Father, knows what is necessary for His vine to bear fruit for His glory. Branches (people) who do not bear fruit for His glory must be removed. The branches who bear fruit must be pruned so that the life received from the vin...

John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” After telling His disciples the new commandment, to love as He loved them, Jesus explained how they were going to be able to obey. He was going to the Father to prepare a place for them so that He could live and love in them through the Holy Spirit. In chapter 15, Jesus chose the metaphors of a vinedresser and a grape vine to furthe...

John 14:31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here. Consider the life and love of the one who lives in those who believe in Jesus. Jesus loves the Father and reveals that love by His obedience. The Father commanded Jesus to lay down His life for those whom the Father gave to Him before the foundation of the earth....

John 14:30 I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; Jesus told them one more thing before it happened so that they might believe. He told them that Satan was coming to try to get Him, but that Jesus would defeat Satan because there was nothing in Jesus that belonged to him. This is a stunning statement of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Eve...

John 14:29 Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. Jesus reminded His disciples of what He told them earlier, recorded in 13:19. “From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He.” At this point, He said, “I have told you before it happens.” He told them 8 things that were to happen to provide a...

John 14:28 You heard that I said to you, 'I go away, and I will come to you.' If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. It was clear to Jesus what he had said to them. He was going to leave them, go to the Father, and then return to them. Apparently, there were no signs in the disciples that they understood the significance of His going...

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. The disciples were about to enter into the greatest disappointment and test of their faith in their lives up to that point. They were going to watch their Master, Teacher, and hope betrayed, arrested, falsely accused and tried, and then hung...

John 14:25-26 "These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. It’s almost as if Jesus wanted them to know that the words He had spoken to them in the previous 5-10 minutes or so were spoken so that they would know He and the Holy Spir...

John 14:24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me. Walking with Jesus is an expression of love for Jesus. The one who loves Jesus, loves and keeps His words. Jesus certainly made that clear in the previous verses. In this verse, we hear the contrast. Those who don’t love Him are those who don’t keep, watch over, and gua...

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. This is a repeat of verse 21 so it must be important. How do we know who loves Jesus? It’s those who keep His word. And what is the reward to those who love Him by keeping His word? They become the dwelling place of the Father and t...

John 14:22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, "Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?" Have you ever been afraid that God wasn’t going to do what you thought He was going to do? You question what’s happening because the events aren’t lining up with what you expected. I think that’s what happened to Judas, not Judas Iscariot, but Judas the so...

John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." In this verse we have a clear statement of what it means to love Jesus and the blessing of loving Him. Those who love Jesus have His commandments and watch over them to keep them. At this point in Jesus’ message to His d...

Live to Love Blog May 2026 by Norm Wakefield

John 14:20 In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. In what day? I can think of two possible answers from the context. 1. The day of which Jesus spoke was the day they saw Him in His resurrected body in the upper room. 2. The day of which Jesus spoke was the day that each of them received the Holy Spirit. In John 20:19-22 we discover that both of these happene...