John 14:15 – If you love me, keep my commandments.

There should be a connection between what we say and what we do. If there isn’t, then we clearly don’t believe what we are saying. Perhaps we are saying it to impress others, or perhaps it is only an expression of what we hope to do someday, but if we don’t actually do what we say, there is something wrong.

Here Jesus ties our obedience to our love for Him. If we really love Him, we will obey His commands. A few days ago I mentioned the “One Commandment.” Here we see that Jesus actually has many commands. I do believe that they all relate in some way to love, but it is good to think of them as many commandments too because Jesus said it that way here.

Jesus tied our love for Him to our love for each other by saying these things. If we really love Jesus, we will show it by doing what He said, and He said for us to love each other. It is clear to me that Jesus didn’t want any believers to go without love. No matter how beautiful or smart or popular, all Christians, should be loved and He takes notice of the love that we give to each one of His own.

In Mathew 25:37-40, Jesus explains that He identifies with the very least of His own. Whatever we do to the least of the Christians, we do to Him, and whatever we don’t do to the Christians around us, we fail to do for Him. I can see that Jesus took our love for each other extremely seriously.

When our hearts are in the right place, it is really quite natural to do this. When you really love someone, you want to please them. That is one way that people can naturally tell if you love them. Another thing to keep in mind, like I have said before, love is not something we can just decide to start doing. We need God to produce this love in us. If we allow God to work in us by His Holy Spirit we will love Jesus and love the very least of the Christians as well.