Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. The person who does not love me does not obey my words. And the word you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me.” (John 14:23,24 — NET)
God is love, but He is also wrath. God forgives, but He also punishes. In today’s passage we see that anyone is free to love God regardless their past, nationality, race, or social status—but their love has to be proven by their obedience to His word. If we say we love God but refuse to obey His word, we are lying to ourselves, and cannot expect anything from Him. But if our love is backed up with obedience to His commands—our love is true, the Father will love us, and both He and Jesus will come and take up residence in our lives.
I challenge you to take a few minutes to be brutally honest with yourself. Are you really obeying Jesus’ word? Are you living according to God’s commands and desires, or according to your own? Are you actively going through the pain of denying your own will in order to do what God has asked you to do, even when you don’t understand? Most Christians say they love God and believe in His word, but their lives prove the exact opposite. And yet, it’s so easy to assume that everything’s okay, that we are saved, that God has taken up residence in our lives, when the total opposite is really true.
If God (Father, Son, and Spirit) has taken up residence in your life, you know it, and people around you know it too. If you’re on the path to having God take up residence in your life, you know it. And if God is no where near taking up residence in your life, if you take a good, hard, serious look at your life, that will be obvious too.
Whether you are doing a good or a lousy job of this, determine right now that from now on you will not have a love for God based on feelings, but one based on obedience to His word—no matter how hard it is, or what the world thinks of you. The result? … God will come and take up residence in you!
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