Good morning,
If you love me . . .
When the world was the darkest it would ever get, Jesus spent his last hours with his disciples telling them the most important things that they would need to know about living their lives without his human direction. The apostle John was especially aware of what Jesus said and gave us a very detailed account of what they and we would need to know in the days and years ahead of us. Jesus’ primary concern was "If you love me, obey my commandments.(John14:15) Thank God, he made it very clear that he wasn’t expecting them or us to love him or his commandments by ourselves. Jesus knew how sinful and self focused his disciples would be and how impossible that commandment would be if left on our own. Jesus promised that I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you.(v.16) The way we would understand that word, Advocate, today would mean a Comforter or an Encourager or a Counselor. Jesus wasn’t demanding the impossible, he was telling us that He and the Father had already decided that they would give us full time help in living this kind of life. This full time helper is the third part of God. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.(v.17) Jesus also made it clear that only genuine children of God would get this kind of help. He said, The world cannot receive him, because it isn't looking for him and doesn't recognize him. We make a serious mistake any time we expect the people around us should or could, really love us. This genuine, perfect, love comes only from God himself.
Another promise that Jesus made was that the love that God had in mind for us to have wasn’t something that came in a package that we could open up and make it work for us. What the Holy Spirit does for us is, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.(v.26) There is a wonderful joy and adventure for all of us as we discover in lesson after lesson how God’s love works in all kinds of situations that we will face as long as we live on this earth. God will fill our lives with stories of pain and difficulty or peace and joy that were important parts of us discovering the strength and goodness of our loving Savior. The lessons He gives us will be the kind that come up again and again as we share what we have learned during our time of living our lives as part of God’s eternal family. We will know the reality of a love that goes beyond words and verses. This love will give us solid and first hand proof of what it means that we have a Comforter and Encourager and Counselor who is always there when we have learned to lean on him and not ourselves or our culture or our family background. We will find out that Jesus and our Father and his Holy Spirit are not just names. Jesus tells us that, "All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.(v.23) Living with genuine lovers will make our lives here on earth a wonderful adventure that will keep on following us throughout all of eternity. Another important guideline is that, Anyone who doesn't love me will not obey me.(v.24) If we really do love the God of the Bible, we will be able to see more quickly when those around us, who talk about love but don’t have it, are trying to get us to follow their dark form of those lost in the blackness of sin. Thank you Lord Jesus for giving us the real thing, Your Love.
John 14:26 But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative–that is, the Holy Spirit–he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.
Roy Wisner
