From Swedenborg's Works

 

Life #102

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102. The Lord loves us and wants to dwell with us but cannot love and dwell with us unless he is received and loved in return. This is the one and only means to union. This is why the Lord gives us freedom and the power to reason - the freedom of thinking and intending with seeming autonomy, and the power of reason that serves as our guide. It is impossible to love and be united with someone who is unresponsive, impossible to come in and abide with someone who is unreceptive. It is because our own receptiveness and responsiveness are given by the Lord that the Lord said,

Abide in me, and I [will abide] in you. (John 15:4)

Those who abide in me and in whom I abide bear much fruit. (John 15:5)

On that day you will know that you are in me and I am in you. (John 14:20)

The Lord also tells us that he is present in whatever is true and good that we have received and that is within us:

If you abide in me and my words abide in you ... If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. (John 15:7, 10)

The people who love me are those who have my commandments and do them; and I will love them and dwell with them. (John 14:21, 23)

So the Lord dwells with us in what is his own, and we dwell in what the Lord is giving us and are therefore in the Lord.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for the permission to use this translation.

The Bible

 

John 15:10

Study

       

10 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.