“He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”” John 14:21…………
“I am prouder of you than you can possibly imagine,” the Spirit of God spoke to me one day. “I see your love for me in your obedience,” He said.
Only the Lord most high knows the unfathomable degree I have desired to hear those very words on this very earth – most especially from my earthly father. But the reality is my earthly father whom I have loved beyond measure in 50 years of life has not only never spoken those words to me to my recollection, though I found out through his secretary decades ago that he was in fact proud of me, but he cut me out of his life over 20 years ago when I spoke about something from long ago he had wished for me to keep silent. So to hear those words from my heavenly Father, whom I now desire to love and please more than anyone in the universe, whom I love more than anyone and anything, and from whom I could not be more delighted and humbled to hear those sweet and precious words, wow. Absolutely utterly amazing.
And right in these blessed words, I realized, was yet another message from the Lord. A message about love, and about obedience. For the Lord Jesus Christ makes it utterly clear in God’s Word that if we really love Him, we will really obey Him. But the truth is that many people go around professing to believe in Christ as Lord, and don’t act like He’s Lord, and live accordingly, and many profess to love the Lord, but don’t give the slightest care to live for Him and to in living for Him strive to obey Him in all things.
God’s greatest command to us is to love Him with all our hearts, and to love others (Mt. 22:37-38), and obedience in this command should manifest in every area of our lives, that we are continually practicing a lifestyle of not merely believing in Christ as Lord intellectually, but that we are following Him. And to follow Christ is not simply to walk in His blessed most holy almighty company, but to love Him, to humble ourselves before Him, and to obey Him for the glory of the Lord most high!
Do you love the Lord? May your every breath be an act of worship, of loving reverence to Him, of sweet adoration, and of blessed obedience to God almighty in Christ! Hallelujah!