Love and Joy Perfected
As the Father loved Me, I also have
loved you; abide in My love. 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.
These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain
in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love
has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his
friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
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. 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.
These things I command you, that you love one another.
The World's Hatred
If the world hates you, you know that
it hated Me before it hated you. 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.
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. But
all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because
they do not know Him who sent Me.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin,
but now they have no excuse for their sin.
He who hates Me hates My Father also. 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.
But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is
written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'
The Coming Rejection
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. And you also will bear witness, because
you have been with Me from the beginning.
John 15
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