That the World May Know

My mind has been taken on a number of interesting and seemingly disparate paths this morning with rather interesting results. I even found myself exploring connections throughout the Bible in the word Gog and the implications that search I marked in my Bible. But what began my interesting voyage that took me all over the place was a choice to revisit this verse:

I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. (John 14:30-31)

I have taken a close look at this verse in the past, but as is often the case I have learned that coming back to a passage over and over again never fails to be rewarded with inspiring new revelations waiting to be discovered and applied. So I let my heart and mind work together to see where the Spirit might lead today and ended up doing a word search on the phrase 'may know'.

What came up on the computer from all over the Bible were fascinating references, mostly having to do with various ways that the world would know that God is who He really is. One of my favorite verses that showed up was this one:

Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people. ( Exodus 33:13)

Another one that I just couldn't pass up was this next one:

The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple. (Isaiah 50:4)

Both of these were a real encouragement for me as I have found myself sharing life lessons and suggestions with some who have asked me to be their friend. I find this a very hazardous venture for it is so easy to allow pride or earthly wisdom to contaminate the heart and tempt me to think that this wisdom is my own when in reality it is simply a very tenuous gift to be used carefully with full credit always to be given to the original Owner. Even as this verse points out explicitly, it is God who gives the ability to speak, to write, to know the right words, and only as I stay closely connected to Him and listen with a humble, teachable spirit myself can I enjoy a relationship that allows Him to make me a channel of grace for others.

But back to the passage where Jesus said that the world would know He loves the Father. I have long found it curious, almost strange, that the logic that He gives, the answer He says that will convince the world of His love for the Father is that He obeys His Father's commands all the time. Why was it important to Jesus that the world should believe that He loves the Father? What is the key things I need to perceive in this unusual verse?

This reminds me about how His true disciples throughout all history have perceived and related to God's commandments. The very word 'commandments' too often has very dark resonance with many of us. That is why I find this verse so compelling and feel a need to keep coming back to it to discover deeper truths that can set me completely free of these dark associations that have discouraged me for so many years.

Jesus is saying that keeping His Father's commands is how the world will know conclusively that He loves the Father. This of course is closely associated with similar statements about how we will relate to Him and to His commandments as well.

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)

I like how Jesus knew that this reference to commandment-keeping might trigger some of us with fear. So He immediately added the secret to how our reactions could be changed about this. He promised that He would send a Helper to abide with us and be in us. And what is the main purpose for this? He helps us by working from within our own heart to empower us to keep His commandments naturally.

But how do our negative feelings associated with this word 'commandments' become transformed into positive motivation? It is through coming to see the true nature of His commandments and the true nature of the God that is asking us to do this; we begin to see that Jesus is inviting us into the circuit of life which circulates the currency of life-producing love throughout all of creation. We are to be restored back to our original design where we receive love and life for the purpose of passing it on to others, not to hoard it or take it from others for ourselves.

So many of us have become severely bogged down with the negative feelings that have been connected to the word 'commandments'. This is one of the successful schemes of Satan to keep us away from the very thing that we need in order to thrive. But what we need is not more forced obedience to a list of rules, for that only produces death as Paul so eloquently explains. Rather, we need to come to see God's commandments as expressions of the natural principles of reality which are all designed to circulate the life-giving essence of God's family – agape love.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. (John 13:34)

This verse can sometimes be manipulated in our confusion to disconnect Jesus and love from the commands of God. But our problem is not the commands of God different from Jesus, for God is exactly like Jesus. Indeed, the New Testament reveals that the God of the Old Testament is actually the very same person as Jesus but before He became a human on this planet. Rather than confusing ourselves about supposed differences between various laws or differing Gods, we have to begin to see that everything connected with God is also immersed in love; for God is love.

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. (1 John 1:5; 3:11)

The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. (1 John 2:6-7)

John is trying to get it past our fear-based thinking that all the commandments of God revolve around love. The reason that Jesus had to state that His commandment sounded new is not because it conflicts with the Old Testament descriptions of how a godly person would live but because we have become so blinded to the nature of God and His commandments that Jesus had to reset our thinking and explicitly tell us that His commands are all about love.

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. (1 John 5:3)

The reason that His commandments are not burdensome is not because Jesus commandments are different but because of the approach to them that He revealed and demonstrated in His own life. Instead of perceiving God's commandments as demands to be achieved in order to be accepted and loved by God, Jesus showed us that these commands can simply be fruit growing naturally in the lives of all who allow His Spirit to abide in them, bringing the very presence of Jesus and the Father right into their very center.

He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. (John 14:21, 23)

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. (John 15:10)

Why am I dwelling on this? Because I need to absorb it into myself maybe more than many others. My own heart has struggled for so many years to believe that I am loved, that God actually cares about me more than looking to condemn or judge me. It is one thing for my head to embrace tons of truth that God has been sharing with me over the years, and I am very grateful for all of that for it has allowed me to see the path for my heart to experience all that I am learning about this objectively. But what I really want is far more than simply head knowledge. I also want to be a credible witness in favor of God whenever His reputation is on trial. I need a deeper experiential relationship with Him where my life, my face, my tone of voice, my gut-level reactions when I am abused or maligned – I need to have this kind of love secured in the center of my own being so that its fruit can spill out all over others just like Jesus experienced.

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

This I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:12, 17)

The more I look into this the more it becomes apparent that God is trying to reconnect the emotional wiring inside my head to help me to see that these two seemingly incompatible words actually are tightly connected as long as I am willing to approach them with the right perception of how He feels about me.

On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. (1 John 2:8)

So, what is it? Is this a new commandment or is it an old commandment? It can be very confusing to the logical mind that has been trained by culture to accept only one right answer. But in reality the truthful answer is 'yes'. What is going on is that the only reason it is new is because it is a new discovery for those of us who could never see love in God's commandments before because they had been so obscured by our legal way of thinking that darkened our hearts with fear instead of the light of love. But the more I have come to see God from my heart and mind in a radically new perspective over the past few years, the more I am beginning to see outlines of a beauty and attraction that was impossible to detect before.

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. (1 John 2:3)

To my own amazement, over the past few years I have begun to sense a new awakening far down somewhere inside of me that is beyond my conscious reach. As my measurement standards of what constitutes a real Christian have been challenged repeatedly and exchanged for new and very different ways of perceiving, I have begun to experience a kind of natural obedience that I could hardly even imagine in my past. Rather than working hard to obey because of fear of what would happen to me if I didn't, I now find myself compulsively wanting to discover more and more exciting things about this God who is increasingly becoming attractive to my heart. And the more I spend time and invest mental energy seeking to know the real truth about Him behind all the facades and confusion from religion and expostulations by many claiming to represent Him, I find that my impulses and desires and feelings about others and about many activities in my life are slowly being transformed. I suppose that might be what John was talking about – we know that we have come to know...

This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (1 John 3:23-24)

Without the Spirit of love given as the Helper to bring spontaneous love from within our own heart, it is impossible to live in a relationship with God that produces natural obedience. This is what I needed to know 40 years ago and failed to grasp. And because it has taken me so long to begin to experience what my heart has craved all of these years, I become very excited when I see younger people taking hold of these truths and embracing and experiencing them much sooner than I did.

But I am also thrilled when I see older people, much older than I am even, who likewise are grasping these truths about God that have eluded them for so long. They become willing to humble themselves and be teachable even by younger people so that they too begin to experience this love that makes them come alive and know real joy for the first time in their lives. As both young and old become willing to cast aside all of the tradition and prejudice and preconceived ideas and misapprehensions about God that have locked us in fear for so many years, we are starting to see the fulfillment of that exciting prophecy that reveals part of what will bring about the close of this terrible experiment of sin.

Remember the law of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:4-6)

As our hearts become one and we begin to experience the natural unity that only come about as each of us focuses on the character of God as revealed in the life of Jesus, we begin to experience that different kind of life that Jesus was so excited to share with us.

And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:20, 13)

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)