Will You Do This for Me?

BY LARALOVE

“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.” John 14:21

“You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.” John 15:14

Ever done something for someone you really, really, really love not because you wanted to do it, but because you really, really, really loved that person? In fact, something you really, really, really didn’t want to do, but you just couldn’t help yourself? You so very much loved that person that you went ahead and did it anyway? Because it was totally worth the sacrifice when it came right down to it because that person meant so incredibly much to you?

What about God, friend? Have you ever looked at obedience like that? That obedience isn’t simply about doing stuff you don’t necessarily want to do because you know you have to and because you know you should because after all God is God and everyone knows we’re supposed to obey God? That obedience in the grand scheme of things more than anything else is really about love? About God’s love for us, and about our love in return for Him? That obedience is an expression of our faith in God and our love for God?

And that if we really, really, really love God, that we can choose to do what God wants us to do, no matter how much we may not want to do it, because of our love for Him? And that the sacrifice we make in choosing to deny what we want and to choose instead what He wants can be an expression of our love for God in response to His love for us?

The Lord has brought me to a new, exciting, refreshing, rewarding, and fulfilling place when it comes to obedience. I used to think of obedience as nothing more than an obligation to do stuff I didn’t necessarily want to do and sometimes even desperately didn’t want to do. Now I think of it as an opportunity. An opportunity to love God. To please God. To honor God. To praise God. To worship God. To give to God. To offer up to God. To sacrifice for God. Not because I have to. Not because I should. Though that should go without saying. But, more than anything, because I want to.

Because when you really, really, really love someone, and when you love someone so much you can’t even describe that love because it’s so incredibly big, and when that love just keeps growing and growing, then doing stuff for that person even when it comes with a cost to self, and even when self needs to be denied to do it, becomes a blessing. And obedience then can become a desire. A longing. Even a passion. A yearning to demonstrate and express love to the object of one’s great love. In this case, a love for God!

Makes you think, doesn’t it? Is it time for you to see obedience in a new light? Love the Lord, my friend. Obey Him in your love for Him! May your love for Him be endless and ever-growing. And may your obedience be an act of love toward Him who is worthy of all our love – and most assuredly worthy of our obedience! For He is Lord! Nothing, and nobody, should we love more than the Lord! Obey the Lord in your love for Him, absolutely, yes!

The next time you consider God’s commands, and God’s will, and God’s call, and God’s desires, and God’s plans and purpose for you, His direction and the leading of His Spirit, imagine if He were to say to you: