Our daughter, Evelyn, has this beautiful German Shorthaired Pointer named Pax. They live in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and virtually every day they take a very long hike into the hills there in the Berkshires. She and he have logged an incredible number of miles. Because he is so much faster, she commands him to wait on the rock while she catches up. He does this at certain intersections to keep him from going one way without her knowing. Obedience with a capital O!
This made me think of us, believers in God’s truth. Obedience is not something you develop by osmosis. It takes effort, training and submission, both for Pax and for us. Jesus speaks very clearly of this as recorded in John. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (vs. 14.15). And later in this same teaching, he says this. “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (vs. 14.21a). It is easy to draw the conclusion that love is proven by obedience, and obedience reveals love. From these two verses, one can conclude that love equals obedience and vice versa.
It’s one thing to read and hear God’s word, it’s another thing to obey It. So much within us, and forces outside of us, do battle against this form of obedience. No one can accomplish this alone. It actually requires someone supernatural to bring it about. Well, God has that solved. Dive into this. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 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 (vss. 14.16,17). Look at this promise.
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (vs. 14.26).
And from all of this, Jesus promises a life here on earth filled with him. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you… and he who loves me, will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him” (vss. 14.18-21).
Would you say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have thought of everything for those who have been called and saved in Christ? Everything we need to live victorious lives here, to be obedient, and show the love that we have for them. The blood of Christ sealed it and it is guaranteed. Look no further! Just obey! Pax would tell you…it’s the only way!