Christ's Commandments

In John 15:9-11 Jesus said, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 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. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

 

Our church is going through a sermon series through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Chapter 15 of John includes Jesus’ metaphor of the grapevine and the branches representing our life-giving relationship with the Lord, our Maker. We’ve heard the term “abide” and that the Greek word for “abide” is “menō”, meaning to remain, to sojourn, tarry, not to depart; to continue to be present, continually, to last, endure and to wait for. We abide in our humble abode, meaning that “we live there”, “we love there” and our “daily life routine” is lived out in Christ. Earlier, in John 8:31-32 Jesus said to those who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” This means that If you keep Christ’s commandments, you will abide in his love as disciples, which is freeing from the sin nature of this fallen world.

 

The Apostle Paul proclaims in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Greek word for “Lord” is “kyrios”, meaning he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding; master, lord, the owner, the sovereign; a person possessing supreme power and authority. To abide in Jesus’ word is to faithfully keep and obey His commandments. The Greek word for “commandment” is “entolē”, meaning an order, command, charge, precept, injunction; universally, of the commandments of God, especially as promulgated in the Christian religion, and collectively, of the whole body of the moral precepts of Christianity. 

 

Just as Jesus Christ kept His Father’s commandments and abided in His love, we are to keep Jesus’ commandments, then we will abide in His love, that that the Lord’s joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. That is the fruit that every branches desires to produce.

 

In Christ, Brian