“You Are My Friends If You Do Whatever I Command You”

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.

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.

“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

John 15:10-20

Our parents teach us not to play with fire, because they know fire can have bad results.

Sometimes we don’t understand the reason God commands us to do things. He has our best interests in mind. As we obey, we “remain in his love” and are filled with joy.

So when God warns us not to sin, He does it or our own good. He really wants to protect us from “playing with fire” and getting burned.

God gives us loving warnings in His Word to protect us.

Our Daily Bread – October 6, 2015