Keep My Commands
If you love God, you'll observe, preserve, and obey His commands.
It’s one thing to believe in God; it’s another to love God. I think that true belief leads to love, but many people stay stagnant in their faith after accepting Jesus into their lives, and decide that’s enough for them.
Jesus didn’t stutter; He made it pretty clear how to show our love for Him or discern who loves God beyond simply believing.
“If you love me, keep my commands.”
— John 14:15“Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
— John 14:21“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.”
— John 14:23
In John 14 and 15, Jesus also discusses the promise of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will reside within us when we love God, and as our advocate and helper, the Spirit will guide us toward the truth of God’s commands and help us to follow through on obeying said commands.
If “keeping” God’s commandments is a vital step in loving God, how do we do that? What are the commands of God that we are called to “keep”?
The Word: Keep
G5083 | tēreō
The NIV translates this word as “obey” in the verses mentioned above, John 14:23-24, but it is the same root word.
guard, fulfill, perform watchfully
preserve something or someone
give heed to1
“to attend to carefully”2
One of the most prominent definitions and uses of this word in Scripture is “to observe” or “obey”. In John 14:23, Jesus specifically says to “keep My word” or “obey my teaching”. The original word used for “My word” or “my teaching” is logos (G3056)—as in the very things Jesus said, commanded, and lived out throughout His life.
Jesus is the Word become flesh; Jesus embodied how we are commanded to live and love God, ourselves, and our neighbors. In a way, Jesus is the “commands” and “word” we are to observe, keep, guard, and obey.
This all boils down to that classic 90’s church kid statement that we all wore on bracelets growing up: WWJD? (What Would Jesus Do?)
Let’s talk about how this is going in our current cultural moment.
If you don’t know, I LOVE reading, listening to, and engaging in conversations about what the church and God’s people are up to (what they’re getting right, what they’re getting wrong, etc). You can often find me in a comment section on Threads where I get to see wildly differing perspectives of the faith. It’s fascinating, to say the least.
When I consider how we—the general collective of Christians right now—are “keeping” Jesus and His commandments, I see two veins.
There is a group of believers out there who are deeply devastated by how Christians have carried themselves and trained up a generation of Christian kids to believe in God without much understanding of what that means. You would consider these to be “deconstructors”.
Before you gasp and disregard their feelings or beliefs, you should seek out what they are processing and saying. This group of believers (for those who are deconstructing and have not deconverted) often find themselves at war with the very words of God.
Hear me: I believe God is big enough for us to question and bring our concerns or pains to, even if it means questioning the validity of Scripture itself. However, there has to come a point where we recognize our limitations in understanding God and the depth of His Words. Science can’t explain our God because God is not a finite human being like we are.
This is where preserving the literal Scripture is crucial for believers. We can’t just cherry-pick what we want to believe and ignore what doesn’t sound good. We are not to add to Scripture or take the words out of context. Even those who aren’t deconstructing their faith can be guilty of this.There’s another group of believers I’m encountering online that is convinced the English translation of Scripture (usually the KJV) is all you need to understand God’s Word. I disagree.
Believers carry the Holy Spirit within them, which means you have God directing and guiding you to “all truth” but who’s to say God wouldn’t invite you to use resources to better understand the original intent of His words?
Additionally, Scripture is meant to be read and understood in community. We NEED other’s perspectives and experiences to help us get a richer reading of God’s Word.
To fully guard and fulfill what God said and commands of us, we need to do our best to understand what exactly God said and commands.
The Bible was written in ancient languages that are no longer used regularly. It was written by Middle Eastern authors 2,000 years ago with wildly different political environments, governments, laws, and standards of living. It needs to be read with that perspective, lest we completely misunderstand God’s commands.
My caveat here is that we may do all the right work in understanding and reading the Bible rightfully, respecting its original time and place, but still come up short in fully understanding. That’s where community, scholars, and faith come into play. Ask a friend, consult scholars on the topic, and if you still feel empty-handed or confused, bring it before God and release it to Him.
Your faith can withstand the unknowns if you humbly recognize that God is still bigger than you and will always be greater than what we can comprehend.
This study reminded me of something Paul encouraged Timothy with in his second letter to him.
Hold on to the example of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Protect, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
2 Timothy 1:13-14 (NASB)
The word, “protect” is often translated as “guard” and while it is a different original word (G5442), it means practically the same as the word we’re looking at today: keep, observe, watch, or guard.
The Holy Spirit reminds us of the truth Jesus spoke, commanded, and lived as He walked this earth, and we are called to observe (read and understand), protect (preserve as it is written), and obey what Jesus spoke, commanded, and lived out.
I sense a theme in my recent posts…
Believing in God and the existence of Jesus as the son of God and one with the Father and Spirit is what I believe is the defining marker of a Christian. However, we cannot overlook our lifestyles. Jesus said clearly, “By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:35).
Jesus’ command to “keep My commands” should be a central marker of our faith and lives.
To follow through on that command itself, we must know who Jesus is and what He commands (read and study Scripture—develop a strong personal relationship with Him), love ourselves as God loves us (learning to see imago dei), and love our neighbors the way Jesus loved those He encountered on the way to the cross and after He rose—with respect, dignity, honor, justice, and holiness.
These aren’t commandments that your salvation is contingent on. These are commandments that show your love for God and are an outpouring of your deepest reverence for Jesus and everything He has done for you.
“Keep My commands” is not a demand to secure God’s love for you. It’s an invitation that fulfills the authenticity of your faith in God and love for Him.
Further Reading
This is the Way | A Study on the Word: Way
Thanks for sharing. This was very thorough and thought provoking.