IF YOU LOVE ME (part 2) KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS.

Our Lord spoke these words, ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments’ on His way to the cross. It followed an amazing promise of answered prayer; ’If you ask anything in My Name, I will do it’. And it preceded an astonishing assurance, that ’I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Helper (Comforter- Parakletos) that He may abide with you for ever. ’ Preserving the commandments of the Lord links prayer and the awesome gift of the Holy Spirit. Truth is balanced.

The Lord teaches that obedience to His commandments releases the love we have for Him. ’He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.’ (v21) Continuing, He said, ‘He who loves Me will be loved of My Father, and I will love Him and manifest Myself to him.’ We could not anticipate that our obedience to the Lord should produce so superbly. We should teach this enriching truth.

The Father promised to love the responsive one; while the Father and Son will make their home with him’. Their august royal Presence surpasses that of any earthly ambassador or monarch. God meant that to be our constant experience.

We can learn obedience from the example of our beloved Saviour, when He promised, ’If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.’ (John 15:10) Our Lord expected that we should obey Him even as He followed the Father. This principle applies in family life, especially where father and mother joyfully obey their Lord.

Solomon understood this when the Lord spoke precisely. Solomon had built the house of the Lord and the king’s house, when the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time; and said to him,’ I have heard your prayer and supplication that you have made before Me: and I have sanctified this house which you have built to put My name there forever.‘ Then the Lord touched the sensitive nerve,’ Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I commanded you, and if you keep my statutes and judgments, I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel for ever.’ (1 Kings 9:1-5) Why should believers in our Lord Jesus Christ lessen God’s expectation of us? We are enthroned in the heavenlies with our dear Lord.

The writer to Hebrews spoke of the Son’s truthfulness, ’For though he were a Son, yet learned He obedience through the things which He suffered. And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all that obey Him.’ (5:8, 9)

Here is a remarkable link between the Son’s conformity to the Father, and of us to Christ, who provided our eternal salvation.

In the Revelation, John writes of Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last,’ Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.’ (22:14) Firstly. Christ is shown as Alpha and Omega; Beginning and End; First and Last. Our Lord is supreme in literature, priority; origins and climax of the ages. Obeying His commandments is right and proper, considering the Lord’s illustrious Person. This precedes our enjoying the fruit of the tree of Life (His eternal life ) and entering the city (the bride of Christ ) through the gates. What an incentive for obedience!

The succeeding verse contrasts blessings of obedience, while John warned, ’Outside are dogs, sorcerers, sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and makes a lie.(v15) Chalk and cheese! Light and darkness! Joy and sorrow!

Our Lord Jesus commanded us to repent, saying ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ (Matthew4:17, 19) Our Slavic brethren look for repentance as proof of God’s working in the human heart, evidenced by the brokenness, moist eyes, and a humble, searching spirit. All is implied in the instruction to repent. Then our Lord walked alongside the Sea of Galilee, watching men casting their fishing nets into the sea. His eternal command calls many in every generation to respond, ‘Follow ME, and I will make you fishers of me.’ Have you surrendered to Him? God never contemplated rebellious children.

Also in the sermon on the mount, our Lord spoke of the light shed from a believer, when He commanded, ‘Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’ Our witness may easily be obscured, dimmed, or extinguished by love of this world, the flesh or the devil. Good works flow when lives are joined to their living Lord; and so they exalt their heavenly Father. The light dims when self rules contrary to the divine purpose.

Bob served in our hospital unit in WW11, whose simple love for the Lord motivated him. When Bob quoted this verse, he often forgot to add, ’To glorify your Father in heaven.’ Are you a piercing shaft of light in your office, school, factory, home?

‘Leave your gift before the altar, (note this demand), and go your way.’ (v24) First, be reconciled (an order not request) to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.’ He who said, ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments’ longed for reconciliation in the family of Lord. That’s why He shed His precious blood: to reconcile us to God and to each other. After the genocide in Rwanda, men and women were reconciled to the Father: they restored sweet fellowship, even with those who had callously taken lives of many loved ones. We could restore fellowship at the Lord’s Table through old-fashioned appeasement at the foot of the cross.

Then, expect revival in the West: as in Rwanda, China, Indonesia, South Korea.

Our Lord directed us to ‘Love our enemies; bless those who curse us; do good to those who hate us; and pray for those who spitefully use us and persecute us.’

(5:44). Indeed, while this is good practical advice, it is a royal command from the King of Kings, who pours infinite blessing on those who faithfully observe His regal decrees. Loyalty - and good common sense. Try it - it is life-changing1

If you love Me, keep my commandments.