The Command

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

THE COMMAND

John 15:9-17

9 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

NIV

Obey my commands seems to be a general theme of these last instructions to his disciples. From this we might well have extrapolated a whole list of do’s and don’ts that we have turned into ritualistic formula for gauging our spirituality, or at least our decree of being a “Good Christian”. Yet what Jesus has been saying all along he makes extremely clear here in his words to his disciples. First we must remain in him, that is a given, but there is a point here that it is our choice to remain in his love. He does put criteria for remaining in his love, which is obeying his commands. Now if we disobey his commands, does he stop loving us? Heavens no, but it certainly would imply that we have stopped loving him. So we endeavor to create this list of things we must not do and things we must do in order to remain in his love, but he tells us right here that this command we are to obey is to love each other as Jesus loves us. True Jesus did in fact lay his life down for us, yet he tells us that no greater love, which he commands us to do, is to lay down our life for each other. So it comes down to one simple, well not really simple, command, to love each other as Jesus loves us. This requires a whole lot more than making a list of do’s and don’ts, and keeping score as to how well we are doing. This requires we set aside all our personal preferences, all our prejudices, all our self-centeredness, all our hurt feelings, everything which has to do with our, for the sake of others, for the love of others. We can do all the personal relationship stuff we want, making it a heart issue, between us and the Lord, but the truth is he commands us to love one another as he loves us. If we want to make any list we should start at first Corinthians thirteen and see what loving each other includes. As to the other words Jesus speaks to us here about us not choosing him, but he chose us, some make the case for election here, but that is the farthest from the truth. Yes he went around and called each of his disciples from their present tasks in life to follow him. They certainly did not seek him out, but he did seek them out. We could just leave it at that, he was speaking only to his disciples and that was specifically meant just to them. But then we would have to do that with everything else, so we must see this as he is also speaking directly to us. So what did he mean, we did not choose him, but he chose us? The fact is that mankind, all of mankind does not seek after God, we all have a heart that is bent toward evil all the time, our hearts are deceitfully wicked and thus we in and of ourselves do not seek after a righteous God. But He seeks after all of us, for we are his creation and he loves us and desires for us to be reunited to him as he intended us to be from the very beginning. So it is still down to loving each other, loving God, and because Christ is in us, we will bear much fruit, fruit that will last and once again we can ask whatever in the name of Jesus and the Father will give it to us. But we should be careful about the whatever; it must bring glory to God. But we also must do just one thing, one command which sums up everything we have been told throughout the whole of scripture, love each other, this is the command.