"Keep My Words"

 

I invite you to join me in learning John 14. Each week I plan to learn a new verse. I will "recite" what I have learned before and give a short study of the next verse. You may email your "recitation" to me or put it as a comment below the post. I am using the KJV. If you use another, please let me know. I am starting the second half of this chapter, starting with verse thirteen. I will learn this block of verses and then attempt to recite the whole chapter later.

(These are HARD!
...especially when the phrases repeat themselves.
I know I'll have to look often, to keep myself going.)

John 14:13-21
13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
15. If ye love me, keep my commandments.
16. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he made abide with you forever;
17. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.
18. I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.
19. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me; because I live, ye shall live also.
20. At that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father;
ye in Me and I in you.
21. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
22. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, 'Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto the world?'


NEW VERSE
John 14: 23

"Jesus answered and said unto him, 'If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

Notice the phrase "keep my words" in the middle of the verse.

Keep means to guard, to love, to obey...

I once heard a story  of a pioneer family, a father and his three children, living in the prairie wilderness. The father had to go to town for supplies and told the children that he would be back before morning. He told them to eat their supper when the clock sounded six times.

The children watched their father head to town and then watched the clock. The clock's chimes had stopped working. It never rang six times. The father had forgotten to wind it that morning. The children were hungry as the evening passed, but they did not disobey their father. Eventually, they went to bed  and still had not eaten.

When the father returned, he was remorseful that his forgetfulness had hurt his children, but he was also pleased that they loved him so much that they obeyed his words.

Do we obey God's words like that? Do you we obey even when we don't understand why things seem to take so long? When God tells us to wait, do we get impatient and do it our way?

Lord, teach me to "keep Your words."
Help me to be faithful. Amen