If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Have you ever played a word association game? We often connect one word to another when they have similar meanings or are related to each other another way. For example, we may associate the word peanut with butter because of peanut butter. When we think about the word commandment we may think of words like rules, obedience, or law. One word we likely would not associate with commandments with is joy. Yet Jesus associates them directly.
The commandments of the Lord are not meant to be a burden—they lead us to live in joyful fellowship with Him. Because of Christ, we are free to live with God! Jesus has fulfilled the commands so that we can live obediently before God in a way we cannot apart from Him. If we are Christ’s followers, His commandments will be important to us. He has given us the example and fulfillment of how to follow the commandments in love. We can trust Jesus’s words and walk in the joy of following Him and obeying His commands.
- Do you typically thinking positively or negatively about keeping God’s commands? Why?
- What is difficult about keeping Lord’s commandments? How is that changed by knowing Christ?
- Pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to equip you to follow His commands.
