Love & Obedience

If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (Jn 14:15-17)

Fear and obedience are tied together. If we fear, we will be motivated by that fear to be obedient. Jn 14:15 shows us that love and obedience are also tied together and this produces a more mature form of obedience, because love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment (1 Jn 4:18). If we love, we will be motivated by that love towards obedience. I have previously written about this in Levels Of Obedience on 8/15/2013.

If we were to take verses 15-16 by themselves and look for understanding in them out of the context of scripture in which they are found, we would end up in trouble at this point. Out of context , they seem to be saying that if we are obedient to what Jesus has commanded we will then receive the Holy Spirit at a later point. However, when we look at them with vs. 17— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you, we can see that the disciples had knowledge of the Holy Spirit and were looking towards an indwelling of the Holy Spirit. I believe Jesus was saying to these that obedience to His teachings would bring about an indwelling of the Holy Spirit and a deeper and fuller relationship between Him and these disciples. Verse 16 in the Amplified Bible is worded: And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever--(Note: Another Comforter of the same kind that Jesus is).

This is not the case for those who know Christ today, because if we know Christ, we are already indwelled by the Holy Spirit (Ro 8:9) Therefore we know these scriptures are not saying to us that if we are obedient to Jesus we will receive the Holy Spirit. I do believe, however, that we can safely say that obedience to Christ will bring about for us a more intimate and deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13:14 the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. I like the way the Message records this verse: the amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship of the Holy Spirit, be with all of you (emphasis mine).

Just Say No

 

It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions  (Titus 2:12a, NIV)

I remember some years back that the slogan for the then new anti-drug campaign was “Just Say No”.  I delighted in telling people that this was not the first time that expression had been used, but was in fact in the Bible. Of course the campaign was only directed towards drugs and the verse above was directed towards all ungodliness and worldly passions.

Another difference, the campaign was dependent upon a person being able of themselves to stand against peer pressure and not do drugs. The admonition in scripture was dependent upon the grace of God. Here is the full passage:

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope–the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14, NIV)

God’s grace teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions. It enables and strengthens us to no only say no to them but also to resist their pull on our earthly natures. And that is not all. God’s grace also gives us the desire and enablement to live upright, self controlled, and godly lives in the midst of this present evil age.

We have been redeemed (saved, rescued, delivered) from all wickedness by Jesus Christ and are purified by Him to be a people dedicated to Him and who are eager and enthusiastic about doing what is right and just and kind.

And the Blessed Hope -- the glorious appearing of our God and Savior Jesus Christ will soon be upon us!

Grace or Pretense - More Than I Really Am (Part 1)

Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.  (Mt 23:28, NKJV)

We do love to project an image, usually an image that is better than we really are.  When asked how we are doing we will usually respond with “Good”  or

“Fine”. We not only like to be ‘put together’ when we go out in public, we want to look better than in actuality we really are. This also leaks over into what we would consider to be the spiritual aspects of our lives.

We will seldom correct someone if they think we are more spiritual than we really are, pray more than we really do, spend more time with the Lord than we really do, read or study the Bible more than we really do, love more than we really do, care more than we really do, or have it together more than we really do.

We would never want our hearts to be fully revealed, our intentions to be fully known, or our motives be fully displayed. We like to appear better than we really are.  Hypocrisy is play acting, pretending to be something we are really not.  It is  trying to pull something over on the other person, so they will not see us as we really are.  Hypocrisy is void of humility and honesty.

Philip Yancy says in What's So Amazing About Grace?

There are only two alternatives to hypocrisy: perfection or honesty. Since I've never met a person who loves the Lord our God with all his heart, mind and soul, and loves his neighbor as himself, I do not view perfection as a realistic alternative. Our only option, then, is honesty that leads to repentance. By definition, grace must be received, and hypocrisy disguises our need to receive grace. When the masks fall, hypocrisy is exposed as an elaborate ruse to avoid grace.

 

In my post Thought of As Wise I wrote so who doesn’t like to be thought of as more spiritual than they really are? Or more holy? Or more connected to God? Or wiser? Or more learned? We could go on, but I am sure we all get the point. I don’t know how it goes in your life, but in mine, when people get those kind of notions about me, they only have to hang with me a short time to get over them.

 

Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.

(Ro 12:9,  NKJV)