If Ye Love Me…

“JESUS said, If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”

“For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, ”

What is the religion of Christianity? A system of beliefs about God and mankind? What is Christianity? An intricate borderline around our lives, telling us what we may do and where we may go, and where it is we cross these lines? Is our faith merely a hide and seek game with God, hoping to be accepted while we live our lives, every one of us doing what we want, whatever we can justify to ourselves? Is it just a set of rules, of dos and don'ts that we apply as we see fit? Is it just a way to feel guilty about ourselves? Is Christianity just a Sunday thing, a lovely worship that makes us feel okay about ourselves, while the rest of our lives are spent in the same way as those who don't adhere to our faith? What is the religion of Christianity? A maxim? A favorite Bible verse? A prayer at bedtime that lets us sleep more peacefully?

America has been described as a Christian nation. That was certainly the expectation of its founders. The people we meet and work with and attend school with and greet in hallways: do they strike you as Christians? What makes them Christian , if they believe that is their religion? What makes you one?

When I was young, I believed the outward signs made you a Christian— baptism, laying on of hands in confirmation, attending Sunday services and receiving Holy Communion —this made me a Christian , and as long as I was following this road, I was a Christian . I figured that would get me into heaven.

Then I met a lot of people who weren't Christians, mostly Jews, who I loved and shared life with. They weren't Christians, but I thought them to be as good as myself, and I couldn't reason why God would reject them from heaven and take me, just because they grew up Jewish and I grew up a Christian. We shared the same morality, seemingly. They had more interesting food, a history that I didn't share, and a fervency about belonging to a family of people who had seen evil and had overcome. I didn't know anything about such things. I was just a white boy who served at an altar on Sunday and was sure my faith was true— but was it the only way?

Here, I believe, I was in error. Not in believing that Christ is the way, the truth and the life, and that no one may come to the Father but by Him . He said that and His word is true. But I was thinking that Christianity was a way to heaven through belonging to a church , through doing the things that were expected , and by participating in ritual repentance and sanctification . That was it, nothing more. Someone else's belonging and behavior and participation in their own religion could justify God's wrath upon them, but it didn't make sense to me. I went to college and fell away from the church, unhappy with this paradox, dissatisfied with my religion. But through the years, and being called back to faith, and again being called to serve in the ministry, I now know more about what the faith of Christianity is and what it does.

It is a personal God we serve, not a force, not a book, not a set of rules . He is the greatest force there is, and He has given us a book, and He has laid down rules, all true : but He is a Person , not a rule book, not a set of scales, not a lie detector, not an x-ray. He sees more clearly than these things measure us. He knows more deeply the thoughts of our hearts. A nd it is these hearts He is after, when all is said and done . He is looking for your heart. Where is your heart?

We say it and hear it and repeat it, and still it is a great mystery. They asked Jesus, “What is the greatest, number 1 law of God?” He answered: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” After that He set the love of our neighbor. The great law is to love God . All other behavior, every belief system, whatever else we say or do, to love God with all that we are is the point of it, the point of our very existence. Start and end there, and everything else falls into place. Try to love your neighbor first and you will fail. Every good deed done without following God first results in misery, and even murder. Stalin murdered millions of Russian people in the name of doing good for mankind by making them faithful communists, loyal to the state. Hitler was only trying to set in order a world that was clean, intelligent, and brave. The Taliban and Al Qaida believe in the goodness of their cause, even while flying airplanes into our great buildings. Love of man without first having the love of the true God and His precious Son is disaster. It always has been.

But how do you love God? He is like a vapor above the sky: invisible, undetectable, improvable, alien and too big to take in. You may feel it's like loving outer space . I don't know: I like looking at the stars and planets, and one may love astronomy, but you can't love space. It's just vast darkness and intolerable cold. How do you love God? He solved that problem for us. He did two things to overcome our impossible task of loving Him.

First , He sent His only Son to us, who became one of us so that we could have a human image, something in common with God. He proved to us so thoroughly that He is God we almost forget He is man, too. The image of Christ on the cross helps us to keep that in view . This was a man who could suffer and die. God can do neither, but God as man can endure both. Furthermore, He rose from death to bring us eternal life. This powerful act is His humble gift to you and to me. It is love acted out in vivid, stark terms . “Love looks like this,” and He shows us His hands and feet. “I did it for you, so you might be able to come to the Father once more.” Now we know what love is, and we have someone to love who is enough like us we no longer think we must love a force or an alien space being.

And then He sent His Holy Spirit . This was a missing ingredient, except in the lives of the prophets and faithful ones who came before and who had the Spirit speak to them and through them. But on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on 120 disciples of Christ, God came to dwell within men and women, boys and girls, in a new and potent way. God came more than half way by becoming a man Himself. Now God in us brings us the rest of the way, from our side, by His indwelling us believers. The love we owe God is no longer an impossible dream. He makes us capable of loving Him by doing the work in us Himself.

Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” By this, He was not saying: whoever follows the commandments gets to heaven . He was setting love in order —first things first. Love me . Love the Father. Love first. Then , when you really love me, obey me . We can't leave that out. If we say we love God and then hate others, mess up other people's lives, cheat and steal and lie and gossip, and commit obvious sin and degrade ourselves : the love of God in not in us, we are no longer in the company of Christ. Obedience toward God grows out of the love, and that love is given to us through the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Disobedience may be human , and thus we tend to overlook it, but it is a sign of the failure to love God . A sign —and indication that we need to go back to God and reconnect to Him, love Him, seek His Face, restore the relationship, confess the sin, be forgiven, and love Him again.

If ye love me, obey. “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you… He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him… If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. …the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” Christ's promise was to give us the Spirit of God to live inside of us, as a watchman, as an empowerer, as a motivator, as a guide, as the mind of Christ, and as the heart of God beating within our hearts .

Jesus said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” That peace is the knowledge of love , not theology. We can have the best theology, and I believe we do, and yet we can still miss the important thing. It is love . And not just a warm-hearted, vague, fuzzy-minded good will: but a valiant, passionate, sacrificial, all-in kind of fanatical love, willing to die for Christ, and willing to live for Him as well, never failing, never giving up, ever increasing in zeal, abandoning the things in this world, one by one, that weigh us down and distract us from the calling.

For indeed, He is calling . Calling us to a life of love and of faith and of passion. Love God with all that you are and determine to obey Him in all things. If you fail, if you fall, go back to Him and get it right. This is a living thing, because our God is a living and loving Person. He has shown us an immutable truth, and given us a great system of understanding, an eternal reality, an everlasting code of life. But remember that Christ said, “I am the truth.” Truth is a Person. You can't simply obey a law because you love limits. Eventually you will try out the other side. Obey love , and love will make you able to live it out.

Where is your heart today? Far, far away, in some project, time awaited on vacation in the mountains, or by the sea, time with friends and family, in leisure, having fun? Okay— God is not a spoilsport. He wants you to have a good life. But don't just take Him along. Seek His Face, His heart, His love to grow and swell in you, making Him the biggest thing in your life, in every pursuit: and then God will take you along . The difference : you being in the Life of God through love vs. God being somewhere in your life : makes all the difference. Christianity: it can be defined so simply. One word does it. Love .

PFH+