To Love Him Is To Obey Him

Jesus had added another command in John chapter 13, and that was to love one another. Now in chapter 14, within 9 verses we see the command of loving God with all that is in you, in a clearer light.

Loving God is not just telling Him that we love Him. We can sing praise to Him all day long, that doesn’t mean a thing.  Look at the Isarelites and what God said about them in Exekiel 33:31 NKJV,

 So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain.

God called them out for their lipservice. They said that they loved Him but there actions said they really loved themselves.

Within 9 verses, Jesus makes the point 4 times that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. So what are his commandments? The Pharisees tried to trick Jesus on this by asking Him, to tell them the greatest commandment in the Law. Jesus amazed them by His response in Matthew 22:37-40,

 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Jesus took and condensed all of the laws that they were to keep into just two. With the first being love God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind. The other is love your neighbor as yourself. The new comandment in John 13, really isn’t new because it falls into loving your neighbor as yourself. Jesus just knowing human nature and the disagreements thatcome from the old nature being right all the time, trying to keep us together reminded us to love each other.

So how hard is it to keep His commandments and show that we love Him? It is easy when we let His love flow through us. If we stop His love from flowing through us by putting ourselves first then it becomes impossible.