We Remain in Him Who Remains in Us

1 John 4:12-16 

12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Though we have not seen God face to face in His glory in heaven, we have seen Him among us (Emmanuel) in an inseparable and somewhat incomprehensible union of man and God, Jesus the Christ.  He loved us enough to come and suffer as we do to then sinlessly sacrifice Himself in our stead.  This great love saved us from sin - its dominion over us and the eternal punishment for it.  This love is now in us, and we therefore live in it and love others as He does in and through each of us who are His children.  This is our assurance that confirms His promises of our perseverance to the end without loss of our salvation.  But if this love does not inhabit and fill our hearts and minds, then we are quite without Him or that assurance.  If we are truly delivered, then that salvation is irrevocable.  If we are not regenerated and there is no evidence of a change, we remain unchanged in sin.  We who are His in truth, then, testify who Jesus is as the Son of God sent to save (John 20:31), and so are guaranteed and assured of salvation which is eternal - it cannot be lost or taken away, for then it would not be eternal salvation.  True disciples admit who Jesus is as the Son, God in flesh, and remain in His life as God remains forever in them.  We have trusted God and taken His word as absolute truth, not as our ancestors in Eden with doubt (Genesis 3:1, 11) who questioned and mistrusted to instead rebel, which is sin.  We trust Him and His living Word.  This is how we can believe this grace of great undeserved love for us, and follow in response in that same love for Him and others.  It is a cosmic tell, so to speak, which reveals whose we are and what we are living for.  Salvation is eternal, and love is our cosmic tell of the hand we hold. We remain in Him who remains in us.