Bible Verse of The Day – 9-18-19

John 14:15 (NKJV) 15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.

Jesus was never one to beat around the bush. He always made things very clear and very simple for people to understand when He spoke.

Many times, He used parables. This allowed Him to teach using examples that were relevant to the way people lived because those examples helped people relate to what He was saying.

In the verse above, though, there was no parable needed. There was no story needed to make His point.

He spoke directly to the hearts of His disciples, whom He was addressing at that time.

It’s interesting to note that for the verse above, most manuscripts used the phrase “you will obey my commandments”, instead of just saying “obey my commandments”.

One simply says to obey, while the other says that we will obey.

Think about that. Jesus said that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments.

It’s a heart thing. If we love Him, we will have a desire and a strong conviction to do what He has told us we should do!

It doesn’t mean that we will get it right 100% of the time. It means that we will want to do our absolute best to get it right.

If our heart is in it, we will make every effort to do what pleases Him. If our heart isn’t in it, or if we are half-hearted about it, we will only try when we feel like it, or when it’s convenient for us.

When I was 18 years old, long before I had given my life to Christ, I was dating Pastor Ellie. I was not even close to being a Christian. My life was not a good example of anything Godly.

But Pastor Ellie had given me a gift for Christmas that year. It was a necklace with a cross hanging on it. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised, and I didn’t quite know what to think of it. I just knew that this gift was given out of love, so I appreciated it and treasured it.

As I started wearing it, I began to be convicted of certain things I did on an everyday basis. The first thing I remember was that I began to be convicted if I used God’s name improperly. And even though my language didn’t get cleaned up as a whole, using God’s name, and the name of Jesus improperly came to an end.

Why? Because I came to understand that it was wrong. My heart wanted to do right.

It took me two more years before I gave in to God’s promptings and put my faith in Jesus, but God had already been working on me.

The point in all of this, though, is this; if we love God, we will want to do what is right. It won’t be an afterthought. It will be at the top of our priorities.

It doesn’t mean we will instantly change and begin living a perfect life that pleases God every step of the way. We will be genuinely trying, not so we can be a good person, but because we want to please Him and honor Him in everything that we say and do.

If you love Me, keep My commandments.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

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