Love and Obedience

If you love me, you will keep my commands.

That’s an interesting statement to make. It’s a statement of restraint as well. Restraint within the boundaries of that relationship if you really want that relationship to flourish.

It sounds like a power play. It sounds very demanding.

Yet consider relationships. Two parties engage with each other. Each has an understanding of who they are and what they require. The next stage is to gain an understanding of the identity and expectations of the other. After that there is the working out of if the relationship is worth the effort of engaging with that identity and those expectations.

Marriages thrive because the husband and the wife see that it’s worth the effort looking to serve each other and live together as one. Understanding each other, engaging with the expectations and working towards something beautiful through that.

Consider, however, the relationship offered by God. The Creator and the created. The great one and the made one. When it’s put in that perspective it should be a surprise that we should be invited into a relationship at all. Not only that, but the offer of the relationship is done from a position of doing it for the benefit of the created. It makes sense that the only way the created can truly fulfil its purpose is to refer to the Creator. Refer in taking on those instructions that help in fulfilling that purpose.

Is it all that outrageous for the loving relationship to be underpinned by obedience? Is is really that strange and unreasonable?

That’s not even beginning to explore the efforts that have been made to rescue the created from the impending disaster that came about through rebellion from the Creator.

For all the Father has done for us through the Son, the loving response is a natural one. For all we get in the Spirit because of the Son, the loving response is a reasonable one. For all that we are because of God, obeying Him should be viewed as a wonderful expression of that natural and reasonable love.

If we love Him, we will keep His commands.

(Photo by Mark Duffel on Unsplash)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden