Obedience

John 14:23-24 (NIV) -

“Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”

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Recap:

- Submitting to God, like submitting a test, means completely giving ourselves to Him to be judged, without taking anything back.

- The Bible is our textbook, which we can study to learn how God wants us to live.

- Jesus, the perfect student, sacrificed Himself to give His friends an answer key so we can properly interpret the Bible. But not everyone who calls Jesus their friend actually is...

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I'm sure that many people are at least familiar with the idea of fake friends, whether you have experienced them or not. These people will say that they are your friend to your face and act like it when you're around, but their actions tell a different story. They are two-faced, acting differently around different people, and their deception reveals itself in their attitudes and actions.

In this passage, Jesus makes it very clear that if we are genuinely His friends, we will do what He says - not because of any kind of obligation, but because we love Him. He also makes it clear that if we don't listen to Him, then we aren't His friends, because that disobedience proves that we don't genuinely love Him.

As confronting as it is, the truth is that if we aren't listening to God and doing what He says, we aren't in a proper relationship with Him.

So how do we change that? Well, the same way that a fake friend becomes a real friend - firstly, by getting to know God better and, secondly, by changing our actions. By spending time with God personally (not just at church with other people) and listening to His voice, we start to know Him better. It's a wonderful thing that the more we know God, the better our perception of Him becomes! We start to understand just how amazing He is and how incredible the things He has done and continues to do for us are.

The first step to becoming one of Jesus' real, close friends is to get to know Him better by spending time with Him. My challenge to you today and over this next week is to intentionally set aside time to be with Him, the way you would make time to catch up with a friend. And don't just spend the entire time talking - try and spend at least 5-10 minutes in silence, without saying a word, and let Him speak to you. Have a paper and pen next to you and write down whatever thoughts come to your mind, and you might be surprised to find what God says or reveals to you.

The second step is to actually change your actions. And that, my friends, is repentance - our next topic.