5th Monday of Lent (March 23). Those who love Jesus, keep his word

Prepare to Listen.  You are the light of the world.
 
Prayerfully Read John 14:18-24
18 “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.  20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me, and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”  22Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”  23Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.  24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.”
 
Prayerfully Wonder
“Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”  What answer would you like to hear from Jesus?
 
Judas (not Iscariot) asked a reasonable question. One some of us also want an answer.  If Jesus came for the whole world, not merely a few, why not reveal himself to the world?
 
Jesus didn’t answer the question.  Instead, he repeated what Judas (and maybe some of us) ignored—those who love him keep his word.  Jesus used the Greek for love, agapaō, seven times.  Hammering home the importance of unselfish love.  Those who love him, keep his commandments, and are loved by the Father and Jesus.  Why he didn’t reveal himself to the world is none of our business.  Loving him is.
 
The church is good at teaching us to obey God’s Word with warnings of punishment if we don’t.  moralism is its strong point!  It hasn’t been good at training us to love Jesus.  And unless we learn to love him, the Jesus revealed in the Gospels, there will be no motivation to obey his word, which aren’t easy or pleasant.  Reward-punishment moralism doesn’t work.  Loving Jesus does.  If we fail to love him with unselfish love, we’ll distort his words into less demanding ones that require little effort.  Or, we’ll become loud about moralistic issues (eg, abortion and homosexuality) the Bible is silent about, and silent on what the Bible is loud on (justice and help for the widow, the poor, the immigrant among us).
 
We, the church must do better at teaching people to love Jesus.  This will only happen if we tell, over and over, the stories of Jesus.  We’ll never learn to love him if we don’t know him because we neglect to teach his stories.  This is why I write so many devotions on Gospel lessons.  To train myself and others to love the Jesus of the Gospel and not of our imaginations.
 
What are you doing so that your motivation for obedience is your growing love for the Jesus of the Gospels?  And what are you doing to train others to love Jesus so they will keep his word?
 
Prayerfully Respond
Lord Jesus, keep me grounded in your stories so that I obey your word because I love you and want to, not because I fear punishment.  Amen
 
Live obediently.  Love Jesus and keep his word.