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A Simple Test of Our Love for Christ

(Overcomer Wu)

"If you love Me, keep My commandments." John 14:15

What the Lord Jesus set forth here is a very simple yet practical test of

our love for Him. Please note that the Lord Jesus did not say, " if you would obey Me or if you desire to serve Me, keep My commandments"; rather the Lord said, "If you LOVE Me, keep My commandments." In the incipient stages of our Christian life, we are naturally filled with zeal to want to serve the Lord to the point of scouring through the Scriptures for His commands to keep. This is very natural and in fact a good sign that we have a heart for the Lord. Yet when we become more mature in our Christian life (when the life of Christ within us has grown to a greater degree), the Lord expects better of us. He no longer wants to see us keeping His commands/His Word out of our natural zeal fueled by our natural efforts, but He wants us to keep His Word out of our true love for Him and energized by His Spirit within.

As we become more mature in the life of Christ by our constant abiding in Him and let His Words abide in us (John 15:7), His Words will become so assimilated into our being that we begin to obey His Words spontaneously. If we allow the Word of God to operate in us, it has a wonderful soul-transforming capability – "the Word of the Lord is perfect, converting (transforming) the soul... " (Psa 19:7). For this reason the second half of John 15:7 says, "... you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you." The Lord can make this promise to grant whatever we ask confidently because He knows that when we are so one with the Lord and His Word is richly indwelling us (Col 3:16), we will not ask amiss or ask for our own selfish gains or interests; rather we will simply become a clear channel for His will to find its expression in our prayers, and our own desires will simply be to do His will.

What is the key to becoming such a clear and cleansed channel for His will to flow through us? The answer is found in John 15:3, which says "you are cleansed through the Word which I have spoken to you." The Word of God will wash away all the gunks of self and sin that has been built up in our system over the years. For this we need to daily come before the Lord in His Word and ask the Lord to wash us by the "washing of the water in the Word" (Eph 5:26). We also need the Lord's Word to daily sanctify us (John 17:17) that we may be holy even as He is holy.

The initial stages of our Christian life are marked with much conscious serving and devotion to the Lord, but don't be bothered by this as it is a stage that we all need to learn and pass through. The important thing is that we should not be content to remain there, but we should continue to press on towards the goal of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. When we arrive at a "full grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13), everything we do will be motivated and empowered by our mature love for Christ.

Towards the end of the progress of the maturing love of the Shulamite woman (who represents us -- the lovers of Christ) towards king Solomon (who typifies Christ), Song of Songs 7:10 says, "I am my Beloved's and His desire is toward me." Previously, in Song of Songs 2:16 and 6:3, the Shulamite woman still added "my Beloved is mine" to " I am my Beloved's." But when she reached this stage of maturity, the clause "my beloved is mine" is gone, because at this point, the Shulamite woman is wholly consumed with the love of Christ and so one with Christ that she lost her own identity. She had come to the true experience of “not I... but Christ” (Gal 2:20). Her will and her desires are now one with her Beloved (Christ), that she can only declare, "I am my Beloved's."

A.B. Simpson in one of his hymns says,

"Christ, only Christ, no self-importance bearing,

Christ, only Christ, no trace of I be found."

May the Lord bring us all to this stage of mature love for Him.