The Evidence of Love
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"If you love Me, keep My commandments." John 14:15.
The Saviour was accustomed often to state the same truths, in His addresses to the people, and in His more private conversations with His disciples. It was not because of any lack of matter that He did so, for He might have kept His hearers in enrapt astonishment at the perpetual freshness of His ideas. But He chose to harp again and again on the same strings, for the purpose of impressing the truth upon the minds of His hearers.
We have a striking example of this in the last discourse which He delivered. He had but a short time to remain with the disciples, and He had much to say to them on various subjects; but, notwithstanding, we find Him frequently reiterating the same lesson, giving them line upon line, and precept upon precept. In the fourteenth verse of the chapter before us, He says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." A little further on He adds, "He who has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me." Again, He declares, "If any man loves Me, he will keep My Words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He who loves Me not, keeps not My sayings." It is evident that there must be something specially important in this subject, or He would not have thought it necessary to advert to it so repeatedly.
And what topic can have higher claims upon our attention than that which is here set forth? The question "Do you love Me?" is of all others, the most momentous; and hence, to ascertain whether the Saviour's love has been shed abroad in our hearts — is a matter that demands our most serious consideration. It is a point on which our present state and our future destiny depends. Without love to Christ, we cannot be the friends of Christ; and if we are not His friends, we are enemies to Him, by wicked works, and as such, we are exposed to His everlasting displeasure.
There are various ways in which we may evidence the sincerity of our love to Him — but the chief is compliance with His commands. "Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord —and do not do what I say?" It is not by the leaves of an empty profession, nor by any blossoms or buds, however full of promise, which, after all, frequently prove abortive — that we are to be known — but by the actual fruits of holy, sincere, constant, and universal obedience. Such is the practical test, by which we should now examine ourselves, inasmuch as our acceptance or rejection with God, will turn upon it in the great day of final reckoning.
The commands which the Saviour enjoins, are not grievous. He does not require us to offer thousands of rams, or ten thousands of rivers of oil; to make long and painful pilgrimages, to inflict tortures upon our bodies, or cover ourselves with sackcloth and ashes. The rigors of superstition are altogether alien to the spirit of that gracious system which He came to establish. His yoke is easy and His burden is light; and all His injunctions are intended to promote our happiness, both here and hereafter. Let our language, then, be, "O that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all your commandments."
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