Where is God? Part 5: Those who have and keep His commandments

(Part 5 of 6)

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered 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 home with him.
John 14:21-23 ESV

This is the promise and the condition I spoke of in the last blog.

Where is God?
He is with those believers in Christ who have and keep the commandments of Christ.
And what are these commandments of Christ?

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
John 15:12-15

John, the apostle Jesus loved, the one most intimate with Him, wrote these words in his gospel. At the end of John’s gospel he gives the purpose of the gospel he wrote:

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:30-31

So the purpose of John’s gospel is that the one who reads it may believe in Jesus and have life through believing. And the commandments of Christ, according to John’s gospel, are to love one another as Christ loved us. Yet again, John makes this clear. Observe these words from John’s first letter:

Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. I John 3:21-24

Jesus promised that whoever has and keeps His commandments will be loved by the Father and Son, and that the Son would manifest Himself to the obedient one. And, again, the commandments are:
Believe in Jesus.
Love as Jesus loved.

And how did Jesus love? He laid down His life. Therefore, once we believe in Him, we are to lay down our lives for God and each other just as He did. This may not mean physical death, though it very well may come to that. But it does mean that you totally give yourself to God and give up your self in all of your human relationships. When you do this, Jesus promises to manifest Himself to you, to be with you in a way that you can experience with your senses, for that is what “manifest” means.

Believe in Jesus.
Love like He did.

The apostle Paul agrees concerning the commandment of love:
Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13:8-10

Love fulfills the law of God, the 10 commandments, and, according to Paul, ANY OTHER COMMANDMENT! The law and the prophets, meaning all of the scriptures in Jesus’ day, according to Jesus Himself, all hung on these two commandments:
You shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus said that there were no other commandments greater than these.

And yet again, Paul commands the Galatians to follow the Spirit, and tells them that the result of following the Spirit will be love, expressed in joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (These are called “the fruit of the Spirit,” which is the one fruit of love expressed in 8 ways.) Paul said that those who follow the Spirit are not subject to the law, and that there was no law against the fruit of the Spirit (love.) He told the Galatians the same thing he told the Romans, that the law of God was summed up in one word-love: loving your neighbor as yourself.

The character of Christ is manifest in the fruit of the Spirit.

And when His love is the motivation of your actions, then gifts of the Spirit will be the means by which the love of God is made known. Notice what Paul says about the gifts of the Spirit:

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. I Corinthians 12:4-7

Paul calls spiritual gifts “the manifestation of the Spirit.” This is very powerful. When the gifts of the Spirit are used as expressions of the fruit of the Spirit, then the Spirit of God is manifest. The basis for this statement is the whole teaching of Paul concerning spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12-14. In chapter 13 he establishes the truth that love is to be the pursuit of the believer, and that believers should desire spiritual gifts as the means to love each other, for he had already told the Corinthians that “love edifies.” So in chapter 12 he makes it clear that all of the gifts are for edification. The word “edify” means to build someone up in their faith; to energize or charge their faith like a battery. Paul says that love does this. And he also says that spiritual gifts are given for edification. Therefore, spiritual gifts are given as expressions of God’s love. And when they are used in this way, God is manifest. At last, notice this:

In the Law it is written, "By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord." Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
I Corinthians 14:21-25

When spiritual gifts are used properly, when they are used from the motivation of love, it will be known that God is really among those who believe in Jesus.

If you have not already done so:
Believe in Jesus. This means that you accept these truths:

You have known God through creation and your conscience.
Yet instead of acknowledging, thanking, worshipping, and serving Him, you have worshipped and served yourself and anything or anyone else that fulfills your own desires.
Thus you have become your own God, and you have lived as though there is no God. The consequence of rejecting God, your Creator, is death, for separation from your source of life is by definition death. The consequence of rejecting the King of all creation is the death penalty, for treason and rebellion in a kingdom are punishable by death alone. You are like a rebel wanted for insurrection.
And you are like a leaf with a will. You willingly plucked yourself from the Tree of your Life. You may be a freshly plucked green leaf, you may be a brown leaf, or you may be a crinkly leaf. But a plucked leaf you are, and all plucked leaves are dead.
But God loves you and does not want you to remain separate from Him. He expressed His love for you by taking the penalty for you. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, God in the flesh, to die for your rebellion and to rise for your reconnection to God, so that you may become a child of God and live forever with and for God. This is heaven. To live without Him is truest hell.

So what you must do is:
Admit that you have lived as though there is no God.
Admit that you are in a state of separation from God, and that you deserve this.
Ask God to forgive you.
Accept who Jesus is as the one who died for you, and as the one who gives you a new beginning in life, eternal life, and as the one who now owns your life, the one who is your Lord. Say these word:
“I believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I believe that He died for my sins. And I believe that He rose from the dead. And from this moment forward, Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the Lord of my life”

According to the word of God,
"The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame. Romans 10:8-11 NIV

If you have just done this, you are now saved! You are now a child of God!


Now, from now on,
Love like Jesus loves. Become God’s servant, serving Him above all others, and serve people as you would want people to serve you, even those who don’t like you, or even those who may hate you.

By doing these two things, you will reveal the character and power of Christ:
The fruit of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit.

And when people encounter you, they will know and declare that God is really with you and really in you.

Until we next connect…
Peace.