'Last Sermon of Jesus'
John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him."
When our children express their love for us, we are filled with joy. However, when they refuse to listen to us, nor to our reasonable requests, then we know that these are disobedient children (though they keep saying that they love us). Similarly, God will judge our love for Him by our obedience to His commandments.
What are the commandments?
Mat 22:37-40 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' on these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
When we love Yahweh with all our heart and love our neighbour as ourselves, then we have fulfilled the laws.
John 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another."
Jesus suffered the whipping for our healing, the crucifixion for our redemption. He set an example for us to sacrifice ourselves for the salvation, encouragement and benefit of others. Thus, this new commandment is the fulfilment of all the other commandments.
1 John 3:16 By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
Mat 7:11 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!"
Our Father God loves us very much and wants to bless us by giving us good gifts. Being a righteous and just God, He has to be fair to all of His children. Hence, He sets out the conditions beforehand so that we will know the type of good gifts we can expect, in obeying Him.
So in this case when we keep His commandments we show our love to Him, this is a sign of obedience and submission to Him. With this simple action, we honour Him by declaring Him as our Lord and Master. So His reward to us will be that He will love us and manifest Himself to us.
His manifestation may produce in us the joy of sudden worship and thanksgiving, gifts of the Holy Spirit, empowering of His Spirit, appreciation of His love and truth, healing, understanding His will, enlightenment of scriptures, love, mercy, humility, and faith.
1 John 2:3-4 Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, "I know Him," and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Not keeping His commandments will mean that we do not know Him nor love Him. So whenever we sing and proclaim that we know Jesus or love Jesus, but do not keep His commandments, then we are liars and untruthful.
