Get to or Have to
“If you love Me, keep My commandments.” John 14:15
I spent too many years on the wrong side of this verse. My focus was always on “keep my commandments”. It sounded like a contradiction to me since Jesus came to set us free from the weight of the law, but here He was saying the way to show that I love Him was to keep the commandments? Then one day I realized the emphasis was on the first part of the verse. “If you love me” I realized that keeping His commandments was the result of loving Him. It’s all about my relationship with Him not a set of rules. Jesus wants to have a love relationship with us, He wants to be our best friend. He is saying, “if you love me like you love your best friends, it will result in you keeping my Words!” It isn’t about works because it isn’t work when you’re in love.
Since then I heard this concept explained as a marriage relationship. A husband and wife are faithful to each other because of the love they share for one another. It’s not because they are keeping an agreement they made when they got married. Although they made that agreement, they want to keep it because they treasure, value, and cherish each other and have a close relationship with one another. When my husband asks me to do something for him, I may not always enjoy the task so much, but I enjoy doing it for him because he is so precious to me. I’m not all about “what am I getting out of it”. Because of the love we share, I look forward to the things I get to do for him because it is helpful or it just makes him happy and he does the same for me.
Here is a list of practical things you can do to grow and protect your personal relationship with your Lord Jesus.
- Nurture and protect your relationship with the Lord like a most valuable treasure. Just like you do with all your other close relationships, you watch over them, not trying to control them but making sure nothing comes against them. Don’t let anything stand in the way of the time you spend with Him and the direction He is sending you.
- Worship! Spending time in worship and adoration is such a strengthener of your love. Let Him know how thankful you are for your salvation, the things He has brought you out of, and the things He’s yet to do in your life. Taking time to sit quietly so you can hear Him say how precious you are to Him.
- Take Him with you all day long. You can have a running conversation with Him throughout your day. Whatever you are doing or facing, He is right there beside you and wants to help guide and comfort you.
Nothing is more important to God than His relationship with you! He proved it by sending His only Son to die and pay your sin debt. He desired you above the most precious thing He had. We know this because God wouldn’t have given His most valuable treasure for someone unimportant.
Today I encourage you to spend some time focusing on your relationship with God. Make it a priority. Talk to Him like He is your best friend and confidant. Take time to listen to the things He is saying to your heart and the words of encouragement He has for you. Fall in love with Him and watch as your desire for Him changes into such a deep love that you want to spend even more time with Him . . . Not to check it off your daily “to do” list, but because you get to and not because you have to. He has made Himself available to you 24/7, do the same for Him!
Today’s scripture reading John 14:15-24
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.
16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—
17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
19 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
20 At 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, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest 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 home 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.
The Daily Dose 