“…I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” (John 14:31)
Bible Reading: John 14:15-17
We are taking time in these current devotionals, to reflect on what it means to be like Jesus – to be one of his followers, his disciples. And we are doing so by looking at the general shape of Jesus’ life rather than the details of what he did.
So far we have considered that Jesus was always aware of the invisible spiritual kingdom of God and that his life was entirely controlled by his love for his Father. As someone has put it, the life Jesus lived on earth exhibited in human form the relation of the Son to his Father in the eternal Trinity. Just as the Father and Son have always existed in a fellowship of love, so Jesus’ life was shaped above all things by his love for his Father and desire to do his will.
Flowing out of that love and desire was his actual obedience to what the Father gave him to do. It is one thing to love someone, and desire to please them; it is another to do the things that please them. Obedience involves a conscious act of will. It calls us to do something.
Obedience to his Father lay behind everything Jesus did. He once said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). The works he did and the words he spoke were not simply his own but belonged to the Father. Everything he did, in effect, was an act of loving obedience.
The verse quoted at the head of this devotional points to the supreme act of obedience Jesus performed, his death on the cross. As he draws his conversation with his closest followers to a close in the Upper Room just before his arrest, he warns them of the coming of “the ruler of this world” in a final attempt to destroy him (John 14:30). However, this could not turn him aside from the path of obedience – he had been given a command by his Father to lay down his life and he steadfastly set himself to do that, “so that the world may know that I love the Father” (v. 31).
The agony that followed in the Garden of Gethsemane tells us how real and how difficult it was for Jesus to obey his Father in this act of self-sacrifice. The writer of the book of Hebrews alludes to this when he refers to the “loud cries and tears” with which Jesus called out to the one who was able to save him from death. “Although he was a son,” he adds, “he learned obedience through what he suffered” (Hebrews 5:7, 8).
Jesus’ obedience, as an obedience of love, is another defining character of his life. It belongs to its fundamental shape, and if we are to become like him, we too must learn to make this part of our own lives.
To Think About:
- Is it possible to profess to love God and yet not obey him?
- Does your love for Christ lead you to obey him?