LivingWalk - An Exhortation for the Authentic Christian Life!

"If You Love Me" - W.E. Smith

Most of us modern Christians will confidently profess our exclusive and uncompromising love for our Lord and Savior. Most will have no difficulty mouthing the lyrics of the many Christian songs and hymns that echo such sentiment in strident and sentimental terms. Others still perhaps, have practically memorized 1 Corinthians 13 on the varied characteristics of love, which reads -

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:1-13)

Yet, the potential stumbling block appears at the point where the Lord, in John 14 affirms -

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

Here is the place where song and sentiment ends, and where real hard and fast definition begins. For these are the dagger-sharp words that pierce through any supposed love of good intentions and worldly affection, and effectively separate any who would merely assume that they are represented in the Bride of Christ, and those who actually are.

Here brethren, without compromise or condition - is the love of the Bride for her Bridegroom? Here is that first love for Himself that He requires and deserves -

‘But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” (Rev. 2:4)

Indeed, no less than five times (John 14:15. 14:21, 14:23, 15:10 and 15:14) does the Lord Jesus Christ affirm the fundamental reality that only a life of obedience can ever be the signature expression of love and friendship for Him. Quite apart from what we think or believe or pretend dear saints; quite apart from our carnal and emotional opinions of what love is, and how casually we throw this word around in the modern church, only those who do what He commands actually love Him.

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

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me…” (John 14:21)

“If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. ” (John 14:23-24)

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:10)

“You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:23)

What the Lord requires of us and thereby deems as our love for Him, is complete faithfulness to all that He has commanded us as His friends. And this is no different from what was required of Him and deemed as love for His Father -

“…but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” (John 14:31)

Now to hold faithfully to all that the Lord commanded us includes it all does it not – all of His moral injunctions in Matthew 5 and 6; all the prohibitions against lust and pride and covetousness and feigned religiosity; the forgiving of the one who wrongs us, the seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness, the banishment of all anxiety over temporal cares?

Yet here in John’s gospel, Jesus draws out one aspect of this love that we would like to focus on here, the Spirit permitting -

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. “You are My friends if you do what I command you. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. “This I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:12-17)

Here we see that the Bride abides in her Beloved’s love by expressing His very self-sacrificing love for others in His body, just as He did. She fulfills what He has commanded, and this alone expresses genuine love for Him. She receives this love by abiding faith and continued prayer, asking the Father for it in the name of His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ.

Dear saints, the days are so dark in this hour are they not? So many hard and long trials and challenges buffeting the people of God. So many suffering great needs of the body and the spirit it seems, at least as far as this observer is aware. Oh how we need each other brethren; oh how we need to be actively obeying the command of our Lord to love another as He has loved us; to allow ourselves to be poured out for one another; to give as He has given to us all.

Many saints in these days are suffering the loss or reduction of income. Others are suffering from sickness and chronic health concerns. Still others are losing property, familial ties and liberty for their testimony of the Lord Jesus. Oh praise the Lord that we would be so blessed as to partake of His rejection and suffering in this world!

Yet it is so hard at times isn’t it? We would be lying to ourselves if we thought otherwise. The temptation is very real because the burden is very real, and often so prolonged and persistent. This is why, after all, it is called suffering and loss and reduction and discipline.

Yet our Gracious Lord knows what we can handle, and He also provides His grace doesn’t He, and it is ever so sweet and precious when it comes to us in so many “strange” forms and expressions.

I would like to offer my perspective on this grace if I may, and it is this – we Christians often think His grace is like some form of magic pixie dust that He sprinkles down on us from heaven to keep us from falling or surrendering to our circumstances. I think more often than not, it is not as fantastic as this brethren, but comes in the form of others in the body, whom the Lord has inspired and empowered to encourage us, to meet some momentary need, to exhort and edify us as the Lord knows we need. It comes in a word, or a single touch, or some relief in the way of goods or resources when we have arrived at the end of our ability to cope or continue.

We remember Paul, and how he suffered, how he was buffeted always by forces outside of Him. And we think of the thorn in His flesh, and that the Lord assured Him that His grace would be enough. Well, how did this grace fall into Paul’s life? Was he empowered from within by the Spirit of power? Certainly! Was he spurred on by the Word of God and its promises of the reward out ahead for those who endure? Absolutely! Yet equally so, he was ministered to by those whom the Lord raised up to bear his burdens.

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (2 Cor. 12:9)

The Father’s grace is so often ministered to us by other servants who are simply and merely obeying their Lord’s command to love each other. Consider all of the names, preserved for eternity in the Scriptures, of those who ministered to Paul in his moments of severe testing and deprivation, imprisonment, physical hurt and pain.

Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. (Gal. 6:2)

Oh that we would see this, and serve one another in the Love of our Lord, and keep His Law of Love, and thereby abide in His love!

It is interesting to me that one of the initial outwardly manifestations of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit (in the Book of Acts) resulted in the saints all dispensing of what they had to contribute to the needs of the body at large.

Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47)

This fellow saints, is nothing short of the free-flowing, magnanimous love of the Lord being manifest in those in the spirit who knew what their Lord commanded. This was the obedience of the Bride; those who will hear the “well done good and faithful servant”; those who will enter into His Kingdom and Glory, as His Help Meet and Queen.

Brethren, my sense is that conditions in this country and around the world are poised to get much, much worse, despite what you might be reading in the press by worldly pundits who know not the Lord and His plans. This talk of recovery is strange to me – recover to what I ask – to the excessive consumerism and greed and corruption that brought us here in the first place? No, my sense in the Spirit is quite the opposite; that we are going to need each increasingly as the dark days advance; as widespread loss grows and conditions become more severe.

A final word of encouragement for all those granted the spiritual gift of teaching, prophecy and/or and exhortation (see 1 Cor. 12; 14;1). We will need you to be faithful to our Lord more than ever dear saints. If you truly love the Lord, then you will indeed allow the expression of this gift in you for the building up and feeding of the body in this hour. Consider the following -

So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time (or “meat in due season”, alt. translation)? “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. (Luke 12:42-43)

“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. “But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. “For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

“Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time? “Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. “Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. “But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My master is not coming for a long time,’ and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eat and drink with drunkards; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt. 24:42-51)

“A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. “It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!

“Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. “What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matt. 10:24-28)

Oh dear saints, do we love Him then? I mean really and genuinely, as He Himself has defined this love? Is ours the love of a bride for her beloved groom, to enter into all of His suffering and purposes? Or is it a worldly, sentimental love; one that is quick to swoon and sing but slow to serve and sacrifice?

The days are short brethren, perhaps much shorter than we think; and you can be absolutely certain that the Master will indeed test our love for Him, such that He might know that we would be willing to release everything as necessary. For He must know that our love for Him preempts and precedes all other loves; that it is indeed, a first love.

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it. (Matt. 10:38-39)

And brethren, lest we be misunderstood regarding how this obedience is made possible; this law of love, and all that He commands us, is not something outside of us that He expects us to go off and keep apart from Himself. Yes, He has given us His requirements, but He has also given us His abiding presence within; His very life and love, that we might attain the mystery of godliness, and the hope of glory. Apart from Him we can do nothing! And He has promised that we might thereby abide in His love as He abides in His Father’s love.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:7-11)

We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. (1 John 4:16-21)

This love requires that we will fulfill all that He has given us to do, not as slaves but as friends; not begrudgingly, but willingly and joyfully, knowing that it is the Father’s joy to sum all things up in His Son, and that only by abiding in Him and His love will we gain entrance into His Beloved Kingdom.

This is our prayer for you all, in the Spirit, and in the name of Christ Jesus, Amen.