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#DailyDevotion What Is Your Heart Focused On? Jesus’ Love Or Commandments?

#DailyDevotion What Is Your Heart Focused On? Jesus’ Love Or Commandments?

John 15:9–12 9As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Stay in My love. 10If you obey My commandments, you’ll stay in My love, as I have obeyed My Father’s commandments and stay in His love. 11I told you this so that My joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. 12This is what I order you to do: Love one another as I have loved you.

If you get hung up on verse ten instead of verse nine you are probably preserve and foolish. Many people don’t know where to focus their attention whether Christians or not. The flesh still seems to rule supreme. We seem to want to go to two extremes. When we focus on the law, commandments, precepts, rules and the like, we either think we are doing a great job of keeping them or we think there is no hope in keeping them. There is a third way and that is pick certain commandments and think we are keeping them, water down the ones we think are too hard to keep and build fences around other ones we think are too easy to keep or break. But focusing on the commandments without verse nine and you are living according to the flesh and not the Spirit (Roman 8).

Just as Jesus when he gave the Torah to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai starts off with, “I am the LORD your God, Who brought you out of Egypt, where you were slaves.” (Ex. 20:2) so too Jesus tells his disciples, “As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Stay in My love.” You see, he wants us to focus on the love the Father has for Jesus and the love Jesus has for you. The law, the commandments, only incite our sinful flesh to break the law (Rom. 7:8-11). If our hearts are centered on the commandments we will never keep them. We will hate them and the One who gave them. However, if our hearts are centered on, if our lives revolve around the love of God in Christ Jesus, if his love is the beginning, middle and end of our lives and thoughts, then we will joyfully be keeping his commandment to love one another. His love will compel us, move us, form us into people who love God and love our fellow Christians.

How does Jesus love us? He loves us by humbling himself to become one of us, goes to the cross, and dies for our sins. He puts us first in his life. He thinks more about you than himself. Look what he does in the upper room as an example to us. He puts aside his cloak, bends himself before his disciples and washes their feet as a common servant. When we love with the love he loves us, we will not think we are too good to serve our fellow Christians. We will begin to think more about how we can serve them than how we can serve ourselves or how others can serve us. Indeed, we will delight in the Torah of the LORD as the Psalmist does in Psalm 1 and 119.

Jesus is the one who completely and perfectly lives like Psalm 1 and 119 for us. In his love we love one another and have the joy of Jesus in us and our joy is made complete. If you have no joy in serving one another then you probably have no joy in Christ having served you. You have forgotten his love for you. You don’t need a laundry list and details for every situation as to how you love your fellow Christians. What do they need? How can you serve them? Do that with joy knowing that is what Jesus has done for you. In this way you stay in his love and his love stays and does his work in and through you.

Heavenly Father, may the love you showed for Jesus and His love for us be the focus of our hearts so we may keep his commandments to love one another and remain in his love. In Jeus’ name we pray. Amen.


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Rev. Guillaume J. S. Williams, Sr.

The Reverend Guillaume Williams is the Pastor of Hope Lutheran Chapel of Osage Beach, Missouri. His pastoral ministry with Hope began in 2005 where he preaches the Christ crucified.

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