Good day
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. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is
perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He
who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked, (I John
2:3-6).
Last time we came to the conclusion that the way to get
to know the Lord is to copy what He has done, through obeying what He has commanded
as well as done. In that way we understand how He thinks and why He has given
the commands, and therefore get to know Him.
When I read this passage once more another truth struck
me and I was amazed once again at how alive the Bible actually is.
This passage tells me that if we really know Jesus we
will keep His commandments. It portrays to me a characteristic of Jesus that is
not often mentioned in Bible based messages. John, the apostle, knew Jesus very
well. A few messages ago we discussed how John was very much loved by Jesus and
that he probably preferred to spend time with Jesus rather than to fool around
with his friends. It would therefore be safe to deduct that John knew Jesus
very well and therefore cautioned in the passage above that ‘if you know Jesus,
you would not dare to ignore His commandments’. As I read this passage recently
I became so intensely aware that Jesus was and still is not to be fooled around
with. Most good leaders I know are firm and do not fool around with their job
or with their followers.
Paul referred to the Lord in 2 Timothy 2:3-4 as a
commanding officer and in Matthew 7:21-23 it is very clear that the Lord does
not take nonsense: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is
in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord,
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in
your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell
them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”
How do you perceive a commanding officer? Would he
tolerate slackness and lack of discipline? Would a military commanding officer
accept deliberate disregard of his instructions and commands? No, disciplinary
action is bound to follow. No army is a democracy and it is so for a reason. If
instructions are obeyed at the leisure of the soldiers’ discretion, how
effective would such an army be on the occasion of an enemy attack? Therefore
the soldiers are trained to respond to orders. When the commander says jump, a
soldier does not ask why, but simply how high?
The Kingdom of God is not a democracy either. It is
simply a case of God commands and we obey. But does it actually happen that
way? I don't experience much of that kind of discipline among Christians. The
Lord, however, is gracious while we are still on earth, but when judgement and
reward time comes, we will experience the consequence of our level of obedience.
Jesus compares Himself to a master who goes away for a long time in Matthew
25:14-28. I don't have space to quote the whole section here, but we see that
Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven is like this man who handed out the talents. A
talent at the time was a form of money and we tend to compare it with what we
call talents these days.
The message Jesus wanted to bring over, however, was
that whatever we receive from the Master of the Kingdom - be it a talent, a
gift according to Romans 12:6-8 or an on-the-spot instruction - need to be
consciously multiplied faithfully and fruitfully to the benefit of the Master, and it usually requires work from everybody.
As we read this parable we see that both received and reproduced
according to his ability. We also see that the talents were returned to their
original owner. It did not belong to the servants, but the owner rewarded the
faithful servants with increased authority and the privilege to have brought
joy to the Master. Our reward is the Master’s joy and this should be sufficient
to us.
Our time and resources do not belong to us, just as a
soldier in active service does not own anything pertaining to his calling. He
just uses what is given him to the benefit of the commanding officer.
Something else that we need to keep in mind we read of
in Revelation 20:12: “And I saw the dead, small and
great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened,
which is the Book of Life. And the
dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in
the books.”
What has been written in your book? We will not be
judged, for Jesus took the judgement for us, but we will answer to Jesus for
what we did, because He took our judgement. He will follow the standards He set
in His commandments when He measures our obedience and determines our rewards.
Think of the standard He set for the person in the parable of the talents, who
hid his talent instead of multiplying it, i.e. having been disobedient.
Lord, please give me grace to obey and have understanding
of what Jesus expects of me.
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