“You are my friends if you do what I command you.” John
15:14.
Obedience consummates
our relationship with God’s Word. Without obedience, God’s Word is not made one
with us, without obedience God’s Word is not sealed in us and we are not sealed
in the Word.
We live in an
age where we think that possessing information is what matters, we think that
intellectual knowledge of God’s Word is what we need and that it constitutes
spiritual growth. Yet, true spiritual growth is transformation into the image
of Jesus Christ (Roman 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:17 – 18); true spiritual growth is
being “perfect as our Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) and holy as He is holy
(1 Peter 1:13–16).
As I write this,
I have a letter on my desk from a sister in Christ in which she writes that she
isn’t going to share Christ with those around her because that isn’t who she is
at this time in her life. Even though she lives in close daily proximity to
others, she isn’t going to share Jesus.
A dear friend
recently told me that he prays, “Your will be done” on a regular basis, yet he
too refuses to share Jesus with those around him, with those whom he has known
for many years.
In effect, this sister
and this brother are both saying that their personal preferences and desires
override the command of Jesus to make disciples of all peoples and to love
others, even to the point of laying down our lives.
Dear friends, I write
from painful experience, painful for me and painful for those I have hurt – every
time I have grievously sinned in my life it is because I have thought that I
was the “exception” to Jesus’ commandments – every time.
Jesus says, “He
who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who
loves Me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself
to him” (John 14:21). Then He continues,
“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My father will love him, and We
will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23).
Would we know
the Trinity in a deeper and deeper fashion? Then we must obey the commands of
Jesus, we must keep the Word of God.
How tragic that
much of our mentality is, “Now that you have become a Christian, you need to
know that because your core identity remains that of a miserable sinner, you
cannot keep the commands of Jesus.” No wonder we are a disobedient people, we
are being taught to fail, taught to sin, taught to come up short, taught to
make excuses for our disobedience and sin. We seek self-improvement and humanistic
therapy instead of the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus tells us
that He is the Vine and we are the branches and that we are to live by His life
– and yet we do not believe Jesus, instead we believe the teaching of the First
Church of Yeah But. We always have an excuse because we have been taught to
always have an excuse.
A marriage
ceremony does not make a marriage. Going down to an altar, or completing a
confirmation class, or being baptized, or obtaining a church membership
certificate, or saying a few words about accepting Jesus…these things do not
make a Christian, they do not make a disciple. (Consider the Parable of the
Sower in Mark 4:1–20 as well as Mark 8:34 – 38).
There are three
components to a wedding day. There is the ceremony, then there is the marriage
certificate signed by the officiant, and then there is the physical consummation
of the marriage. There have been times in history when it was customary for
there to be a witness to the consummation – an uncomfortable prospect for us
today. The point is that the ceremony and the certificate were sealed and confirmed
by the consummation.
In much the same
way, our obedience to Jesus confirms and seals His Word in our lives and brings
us into intimate friendship with the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit.
While we tend to
portray Christ’s commandments as difficult, the Scriptures portray His
commandments as delightful. John writes that “His commandments are not
burdensome” (1 John 5:3) and Daivd calls them “More desirable than gold, yes,
than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb”
(Psalm 19:10).
Our thinking and
teaching, which tends to set us up for failure and alienation from Jesus, ought
to be exalting the glory of His commandments and our joy in obeying them.
We are called to
say along with Jesus, “My food is to do the will of the Him who sent Me and to
accomplish His work” (John 4:34).
Jesus calls us
into intimate friendship with Himself through obedience to His commandments. The
distinguishing commandment is that we love one another just as He loves
us, laying down our lives for one another. Within such love, we will find holy
friendship with Jesus and with one another, within such love we will experience
intimacy with the Trinity and with one another, within such love we will come
home to the Father and live in His House.
Shall we live as
the friends of Jesus today?
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