“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments."

John 14:15-31 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

¹⁶ I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; ¹⁷ that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.

¹⁸ “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. ²¹ 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.” ²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” ²³ Jesus answered and said to him, “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. ²⁴ He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.

²⁵ “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. ²⁶ But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. ²⁸ You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹ Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. ³⁰ I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; ³¹ but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

In today’s reading from Psalms, Psalm 119:33-40 says:  Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, And I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law And keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest gain. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, And revive me in Your ways. Establish Your word to Your servant, As that which produces reverence for You. Turn away my reproach which I dread, For Your ordinances are good. Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me through Your righteousness.   In today’s text from John 14, Jesus says:  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”  It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth that helps us to keep the commandments of Jesus. We still though need to have the same heart as the psalmist. We need to say:  Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, And I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law And keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it.  The Holy Spirit will not make us do anything. He will guide us, teach us and direct our paths, but we must yield to Him, we need to delight in doing what is right.

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.”   If we say that we love Jesus and the Father, then we must be obedient to His commandments. We cannot justify sin. We cannot make His commandments fit our desires and whims. We cannot say that we love truth, yet practice a lie.  Jesus says:  “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. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”  In order for the Holy Spirit to bring to our remembrance all that Jesus has said, we need to have heard His words. When the Holy Spirit teaches us, He gives us the understanding that the psalmist asked for. Still, we need to read and hear the word. We need to delight in it. We need to choose what is right. Jesus promises us peace, but it is not peace as the world gives us. We cannot be at peace with the darkness of the world and know the peace of Christ.   Jesus plainly says:  “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. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”  We cannot abide with God if we are not obedient to His word and His will. In Deuteronomy 30:15-19, God says:   “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it. But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess it. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live.”

In John 10:10 Jesus says:  “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  The Holy Spirit will teach us, help us and guide us, but we must choose whether we will be obedient to Jesus or listen to the lies that steal, kill and destroy. We must choose life or death; blessing or curse; prosperity or adversity.

Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, And I shall observe it to the end. Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law And keep it with all my heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it. Incline my heart to Your testimonies And not to dishonest gain. Turn away my eyes from looking at vanity, And revive me in Your ways. Establish Your word to Your servant, As that which produces reverence for You. Turn away my reproach which I dread, For Your ordinances are good. Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me through Your righteousness.  Amen.