The Church and generations of believers have clung to these comforting words for centuries. As the decades pass and our loved ones pass on, we gradually come to understand the true meaning of abiding love. This broken world promises abiding love in many ways, but wrinkles, wisdom, and God's Word gradually reveal where our only true hope and enduring love come from. Abiding love is found only in Jesus.

Where or in whom are you searching for hope and enduring love today? Many are still searching for that love in all the wrong places. Friends, Jesus knew that in this life's trials, He alone would be our true joy. He knew that in our disappointments, He would be our hope in our darkest days. He knew that in sickness, He would be our healing, and in death, He would be our life!

He also knew that nothing could separate us from God's love if we abided in Him. Saint John knew Jesus' abiding love while isolated on Patmos. Saint Paul knew it and described it like this: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:38-39).

Abiding love is free and always available when we obey and abide in Jesus.

Onward and Upward + Fr. Greg