Are You In Union With God, Jesus The Messiah?

John continues telling us how followers of Jesus the Messiah are to live.

1 John 2 ISV

1My little children, I’m writing these things to you so that you might not sin. 

• Yet if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus, the Messiah,a one who is righteous. 2It is he who is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world’s.

3This is how we can be sure that we have come to know him: 

• if we continually keep his commandments. 
• 4The person who says, “I have come to know him,” but does not continually keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth has no place in that person. 
• 5But whoever continually keeps his commandments is the kind of person in whom God’s love has truly been perfected. 
• This is how we can be sure that we are in union with God:b 6The one who says that he abides in him must live the same way he himself lived.

I want to again quote what Jesus told John and the disciples. It apparently made a big impression on John, as Jesus' words are in union with what John writes above. I am sure John was thinking of Jesus' words as he wrote the above. 

John 15 ISV

1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vintner. 2He cuts off every branch that does not produce fruit in me, and he cuts back every branch that does produce fruit, so that it might produce more fruit. 3You are already clean because of what I’ve spoken to you. (Note: In verse 3, Jesus is talking to his disciples, not us.) 

4“Abide in me, and I will abide in you. Just as the branch cannot produce fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who abides in me while I abide in hima produces much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6Unless a person abides in me, he is thrown away like a prunedb branch and dries up. People gather such branches,c throw them into a fire, and they are burned up.

7“If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask for anything you want, and you’ll receive it. 8This is how my Father is glorified, when you produce a lot of fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9Just as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. So abide in my love. 

10If you keep my commandments, you’ll abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 

11I’ve told you this, so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.