Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. In the portion of the farewell discourse that constitutes today’s Gospel Reading, in his efforts to encourage his disciples to remain united to, and in him, Jesus makes three important assertions. 
Firstly, the disciples needed to remain united to him. It was important that the disciples remain united to Jesus since it is only by remaining united to the master does a disciple retain his/her identity. The mission of preaching the good news to the ends of the world that was given them by Jesus can only be successful if they remain united to Jesus since Jesus himself is the message. Moreover, only by remaining united to Jesus would the disciples find it easy to keep (observe) and carry out Jesus’ command to love: “ I give you a new commandment: love one another” (cf. John 13:34). As Jesus had told them, only by loving can one lay claim of being his disciple (cf. John 13:35). 
Secondly, the disciples needed to faithfully keep Jesus’ command of love. This is important because it is in the keeping (observing) and carrying out of Jesus’ command to love that a disciple demonstrates his/her love for Jesus. As we saw in last Sunday’s Gospel reading (Year C), the command to love is kept, not by memorizing it or locking it in a safe (as we would do with our important documents), but rather by  doing. Love is more of a verb than a noun (OB- toward, SERVING). We show our love for Jesus when we are in service of our brothers and sisters. 
Thirdly, and most importantly, a disciple who loves Jesus is loved by the Father who then, together with the Son, make their dwelling in the disciple. God’s love for us is unlike our (human) understanding of love. It is neither earned nor given as a favor. As a people created in God’s love, we are always surrounded by the love of God. However, we have to open ourselves to that love. It is this opening of ourselves to God’ love, our coming to the recognition of God’s love as our very essence, that is the third assertion: God dwelling in us. 
When Jesus says that “the Father and I will make our dwelling with him,” he doesn’t mean that there is ever a time that God takes leave of us. God is always with us. Rather, he means that he/she who has come to open the self to God’s love becomes totally consumed by the love of God so much so that he/she “decreases” and God “increases” (cf. Galatians 2:20b). The one who truly loves must be changed. Love transforms the lover into the beloved. One cannot truly love and remain the same, for love is an active word, a verb. Loving requires, as it were, “getting out of the self” (emptying the self) in order to welcome/make room for the other. In this case, that “other” is God (the Father and I will make our dwelling with him [vs. 23]). In other words, the one in whom God dwells acts as God would; the one in whom God dwells behaves as Jesus would. To borrow the terminology of the Apostle Paul,  when I love, it is not I who loves but rather the God who dwells in me.