If you love Me, you will keep My commands.     John 14:15

In this short and sweet Scripture passage, Jesus is telling His disciples that if they love Him, they will keep His commands. That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? But if you love Him, you know that keeping His commands is not always so easy. We are constantly struggling within our flesh because our flesh opposes the Spirit.

Do you love Jesus, do you trust in Him and love Him with all your heart? Then act like it. Yes, I just said that it wasn’t always easy, but we aren’t called to do the easy stuff. We are called to be warriors for Christ, not wimps for Christ. Do you have what it takes? Do you know what it takes?

This piece from our Scripture passage is at a time when Jesus is preparing His disciples for His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. He is trying to tell them that He will be leaving them. He tells them, however, that He will ask His Father and His Father will send another counselor to be with them. He tells them this is the Spirit of truth. He is referring to the Holy Spirit.

Then comes the really important part. He tells them that the world is unable to receive the Holy Spirit because it doesn’t see Him or know Him. Remember the world is the enemy of Christ. We can receive the Holy Spirit simply by knowing Christ. When we surrender our lives to Christ, the Holy Spirit will come and remain in us, and Christ will be in us. If we have Christ living inside of us, He will help us to obey His commands.

It’s easy to say that you are a Christian, but not so easy to act like it. It requires submission to Christ. It requires surrender and it requires total dedication. If we commit to Him, He will take care of the rest. He will help us, and He will guide us.

We are told in Ephesians 5:1 that we are to be imitators of Christ. Yes, that’s a tall order, but we are not told we have to go it alone. We are told that God’s Holy Spirit will help us with that. We must walk with the Spirit so that we do not gratify the desires of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). Don’t focus on trying to stop your bad behavior, focus on God. Focus on walking with the Spirit. Focus on being more like Christ and the rest will fall into place. My pastor often says that he sins more than he wants to because he doesn’t want to sin at all. This is what it means to be filled with God’s Holy Spirit. This is what it means to walk with the Spirit.

If you have accepted Christ as your savior, but don’t act like it you can remedy that. You can turn to God. You can surrender it all to Him and trust in Him. He will send His Holy Spirit to fill your heart and remain in you.

There are plenty of people claiming to be Christians in the world today, but not so many that actually act as though they truly are. When we claim to be Christians but act like a child of the devil, we put a stumbling block up for those who may be wanting to come to know Christ. We become that hypocrite that everyone loves to talk about. The one that keeps them out of church and keeps them from trusting in Christ.

We are God’s children. In Mark 9:42 Jesus warns that anyone who causes the downfall of one of the little ones who believe in Him it would be better for a millstone to be tied around their neck and for them to be cast into the sea. There are enough false teachers out there, we don’t need to further contribute to this problem.

If we don’t act like the Christians we profess to be, we cause a whole host of problems for ourselves and those around us. If you claim to be a Christian, act like a Christian. We are called to lead others to Christ.

Know that the devil wants to stop you from doing this, but in James 4:7 God tells us to submit to Him, resist the devil and the devil will flee from you. Call on God’s Holy Spirit to fill your heart and reside in you. Walk with the Spirit and let go of the desires of the flesh. God doesn’t ask us to go this alone. He’s right here to help us through.

Have a great day!