Student Devotion Session 5: Vertical Obedience

Key Verses: John 14:15-24, "¹⁵ If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be^[a] in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” ²² Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”²³ Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. ²⁴ Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me."

Jesus' words are pretty straightforward aren't they?

Those who say they love me show it by doing what I say. Those who say they Love me but don't do what I say don't really Love me.

How do these words make you feel? How are you tempted to respond? Do you feel like they are too harsh? After all, no one can obey Jesus all the time, right? You try, and for the most part you do pretty well. But, occasionally you slip up. Does this mean you don't Love Jesus? If this is the standard, does anyone really Love Jesus?

If you read this and think Jesus is harsh and maybe a little demanding, maybe that's not all that bad. Some of what Jesus had to say was a little harsh. See, we tend to turn Jesus into a wimp most of the time. We want Jesus to fix our problems and make us feel good when we feel bad. But most of the time we just want Him to stay out of our business. So, in this sense it's probably a good thing that Jesus rattles our cages a bit.

If this seems demanding, again, this is probably OK. Jesus does demand a great deal from us. He demands absolute loyalty and devotion. He expects to have no other competition for our affection. And here's the kicker, our obedience results from us being loyal and devoted to God. They go hand in hand.

Jesus doesn't ask for us to keep a list of do's and don'ts and to check them off one at a time. That's not obedience to Jesus. That's obedience to morality. Jesus expects us to give Him our hearts and in turn to take up His heart. He wants us to live as He lived, to view the world as He did to see people as His children. And to look at our lives as important pieces in His big-picture plan.

When we live this way, we are living obediently. And our obedience is a demonstration to God of just how much we Love Him.