A SPIRIT CAFÉ DISCUSSION GUIDE
1. Welcome and introduce newcomers to the café
2. Open with a prayer for God’s guidance and presence
3. Ask everyone if they heard Sunday’s message.
March 26, 2023
REMAIN IN MY LOVE
Pastor Rick Huff—Study Guide
In our reading today the disciples are spending their final evening with Jesus. They were bewildered and overwhelmed with fear, as He announced He was leaving.
Questions filled their mind, where do we go from here, how do we handle this, what do we do now?
One verse is central to the entire chapter.
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.” John 15:9 NLT
What does it mean to remain in His love? Be aware of, focus on and believe in My love.
Jesus gives us specific areas to stay connected. These areas are essential to staying connected and growing a life that matters.
Believe Right
4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
Think Right
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Do Right
10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Love Right
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Pray Right
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. John 15:4-6 NIV
Love that desires the best for you.
1“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.
Love that purifies
3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.
Love that builds our faith
5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.
7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.
Love that creates commitment
9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. 10 When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
Love that brings great joy
11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.
Love that builds friendship
13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.
Love that makes a difference in eternity 16 You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.
Love that builds community
17 This is my command: Love each other. John 15:1-17 NLT
