On Obedience-Lent 15, 2015

If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:15 )

Today’s final instruction With Christ in the Upper Room is something that Jesus can say, that if we said it, it probably wouldn’t go well for us.

• Imagine if a child said it to a parent, or a parent to a child.  “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
• Imagine if a wife said it to a husband, or a husband to a wife. “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
• Imagine if your neighbor said it to you or you to a neighbor. “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

Jesus can get away with it because He’s God and God makes the rules.

Jesus can say it because His commands are not things like take out the garbage, clean your room, get me a beer, or tear down this fence because good fences do not make good neighbors!

Rather, Jesus’s commands are ones that merit obedience:

• John 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
• Matthew 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
• Mark 12: 29 “The most important [commandment],” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

Obedience is good.

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Give it Up for Lent: Disobedience and rebellion

Put it On for Lent: Obedience to the Lord’s commands

For further thought, consider the consequences of disobedience.

• 1 Samuel 12:15 “But if you do not obey the LORD, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.
• 2 Thessalonians 1:6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
• How does Jesus’ saying “If you love me, you will obey what I command” differ from an ultimatum?

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