If you love me, you will keep my commandments. – John 14:15
The goal of a military boot camp is to turn a civilian into a soldier. Various means are used to accomplish this end, but at the heart of all of it is learning to follow commands. Mental toughness is developed at the same time as a recruit learns to handle weapons. While learning to manage situations, they learn lessons for managing life in general.
There are many parallels to the Christian life. Although military boot camps generally last around 13 weeks, the Christ-follower is in continual training. The believer is being transformed through active immersion in the study of God’s Word, in taking the time to intimately engage the Lord in prayer, and by listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. As a “soldier of the Cross,” then, the Christian is able to discern the evils of the world’s system and to resist the onslaughts of Satan.
As a believer in Jesus, you have a far higher motivation than the military recruit does—your love for Jesus far outweighs the recruit’s love for country. Or it should! Pastor and author Ray Stedman said, “‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments,‘ not the other way around. Love makes obedience easy. It is the delight of love to do what the loved one desires when the heart grows dull and obedience is difficult, the proper response of the Christian is not to grit his teeth and tough it out, but to remember who it is that asks this of him and them for his sake, to do it.” The evidence of your love for Jesus is revealed in the extent of your obedience, with your words, your walk, your work, your worship, and your wealth. And one proof of your love is how well you love your neighbor. Pray for a greater show of God’s love by Christians who are active in government, including those who are currently campaigning for office.
Today’s Verse: John 14:15
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: John 14:15-24
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is 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 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 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
