Grace and Love

John 14:15” If you love me, you will keep my commandments”

Remember those pictures that if you looked one way you saw an old crone, but another way you saw a beautiful woman? What you saw depended on which prominent feature your eyes first picked out. It was amazing when someone else showed you how to see the other image.

Reading St. Augustine’s words on John 14:15 was that kind of experience for me. I never saw the grace in this verse, only the guilt. Reacting to these words of Christ as if they are just another commandment to keep is natural. Our parents, teachers, pastors, and society all tell us that if we are ‘good people’ we will keep the rules. This verse sounds just the same.

But what if you look at that verse like someone in love? When you are in love and when you love someone it just oozes out of you. Giving, caring, loving, helping, thinking about them, trying to make their life easier, pleasant, joyful; these things flow out of a heart of love. When someone is precious to you the natural response is a desire to do what they request.

If this verse means, as Augustine believed, that the more we fall in love with Christ the easier doing his will becomes, then Christ was not giving us yet another commandment to keep; he was showing us how to live. He says; focus on me, not on yourself (your actions, behavior, good deeds or lack thereof). He invites us to enjoy him, love him, and immerse our very being in him. When he is the focus of our lives “his commandments are not burdensome.” 1 John 5:3

The old question, “When your teacup gets bumped, what sloshes out?” is no longer about how good I am, but how loving him has infused my being.

Focus on him, love him, enjoy him, and delight in his gifts; being who he wants you to be will come naturally.

Can it really be that wonderfully simple?

Inspired by the Legacy of Sovereign Joy by John Piper.