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“If You Love Me...”
Categories: Christian character, Sunday Family Report articles“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)
Those who serve others spend a lot of their time doing what others ask of them or expect of them. If a spouse has an emotional need, a servant-oriented spouse will not resent their partner’s need, but will serve them by doing what they can to meet it. If a church has spiritual needs, her servant leaders will not begrudge the members for that, but will do their best to meet said needs. If a stranger is in need, servant-minded Christians will not turn a blind eye, but will do what we can to meet those needs as a demonstration of Christ’s love. And beyond the concept of need, many acts of service are simply done to give another what they want. If we love them, we find ways to serve them and bring them joy.
But of course, all these are just smaller versions of Christians’ greater goal of serving God in the way we live our everyday lives.
That’s what he meant in the simple statement quoted above. If we love him, then we will serve him. We will never begrudge being instructed or corrected by his word; we will do what needs to be done to live rightly before him. And more than that, we will look for things that we can do to make God “well pleased” (i.e. happy) with us.
As a father, there is one expression of my sons’ love that is exceedingly simple and yet is also quite elusive: the simple response of agreement and obedience when I ask them to do something. That simple act of willing obedience goes such a long in declaring their love for me. And it must surely be the same with God, who says to all people throughout all time in the words of his Son: “If you love, you will keep my commandments.”
- Dan Lankford, minister
