Do You Love Jesus? By Bruce W. Robida

 

Jesus, speaking to His disciples said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15).  The emphasis is on two words here, Me and I. Jesus made it clear that obeying His commands was a demonstration of whether or not someone truly loved Him.  It is one thing to say “I love Jesus”, but quite another to prove it by obeying His teachings. 

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” MT 22:34-40

According to Jesus, loving God with all your heart and soul is the greatest commandment.  Jesus told the people, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), therefore, loving Jesus and loving the Father are accomplished in the same way.  When Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command”, it was the same as saying, if you love the Father you will obey what He commands since Jesus and the Father are one. 

“All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him". Matthew 11:27

Jesus taught only what the Father told Him to teach, therefore, obeying Jesus is the same as obeying the Father.

But what does it mean to Love God with all your heart and soul since this is the greatest commandment?  God would not expect such a thing from His people if He did not reveal the answer to that question.  Remember, the true test of whether or not you love God/Jesus is whether or not you obey His commands.  But earlier we saw a caveat to this command.  Remember the two words that were highlighted in the statement that Jesus made about loving Him?  “If you love me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15).  It is important to love and obey Him and not some other god, and especially other men.  But take a look at the following Scripture;

If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. Deuteronomy 13:1-4

Do you see the point here?  There are many teachers and preachers leading their congregations to follow false ideas using bad theology.  These false teachers, prophets, preachers, apostles, etc., point their people to false gods by teaching them to obey something other than what Christ taught.  The New Testament is full of Christ’s teachings, yet many preachers devise new and elaborate doctrines that go far beyond what Christ taught.  Loving God with all your heart and soul requires that you obey Him and not some man pretending to be a prophet or apostle.  We can find God’s commands simply by reading the Bible and we need nothing more.  By the way, by learning from the Disciples of Jesus, we are actually learning from Jesus. 

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

The apostles of Christ learned to obey His teachings, and in turn they taught those teachings to us through the Scriptures. 

With many other words he [Peter] warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Acts 2:40-42

If you answered, "Yes" to the question, "Do you Love Jesus?", then, you must obey His commands and no one else's.

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