John 15:12-15 - "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."
Jesus says, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." It is easy to take this verse and maybe take a more "robotic" approach, thinking, "Oh, I need to go look at the 10 commandments." But actually, what Jesus is saying here concerning His commandments is in an ongoing tense.
He is calling them to continue in intimacy through hearing His voice, following His directions, and yielding to His Spirit. Through this sensitivity and yielded life comes the ability to follow after His heart which leads to fruit-bearing for His Kingdom.
John 10:27 - "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."
Here is His command for His friends – those who walk with yielded lives to Him in God's PURPOSE for their life (their CALLING in Christ). He has brought His disciples beyond the point of operating in a slave system (being a slave to the Law) and taken them into an organic, living relationship.
God has taken us out of a slave-system having brought us into His family as sons. Our hearts have the cry of His Spirit bringing us into intimate communion with the Father. The same picture can be seen in that we are now saints, not sinners. The old life is gone and the new life of Christ living through us has come.
Jesus says, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you." It is easy to take this verse and maybe take a more "robotic" approach, thinking, "Oh, I need to go look at the 10 commandments." But actually, what Jesus is saying here concerning His commandments is in an ongoing tense.
He is calling them to continue in intimacy through hearing His voice, following His directions, and yielding to His Spirit. Through this sensitivity and yielded life comes the ability to follow after His heart which leads to fruit-bearing for His Kingdom.
John 10:27 - "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."
Here is His command for His friends – those who walk with yielded lives to Him in God's PURPOSE for their life (their CALLING in Christ). He has brought His disciples beyond the point of operating in a slave system (being a slave to the Law) and taken them into an organic, living relationship.
God has taken us out of a slave-system having brought us into His family as sons. Our hearts have the cry of His Spirit bringing us into intimate communion with the Father. The same picture can be seen in that we are now saints, not sinners. The old life is gone and the new life of Christ living through us has come.
