John 14:21

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 Myself to him.”

I began this week memorizing this verse. The only way I know how to memorize scripture is to repeat it over and over. I often times say it out loud. I have done that enough this week that if I close my eyes, I can almost hear Jesus saying these words to His disciples and them being in awe of His words. They would have been trying to take all of them to heart. They knew the commandments. They thought they knew what it meant to keep them. Jesus would blow their minds telling them that their righteousness would have to exceed that of the Pharisees. They would have been hopeful that they were keeping the commandments well, which meant that they were demonstrating their love. If you keep His commandments, then you love Him. If you love them then God, the Father loves you and Jesus loves you. This would have been amazing to them. How about you? Are you amazed that God loves you? Are you amazed at the depth of God’s love? Not only would they be loved by Jesus but then Jesus would reveal or manifest Himself to them. Often times we study to know about Jesus and this is good and we should study to know Jesus, but there is more. There is the experiential knowledge of Jesus. In this place, Jesus reveals Himself as savior, friend, almighty God, and God with us. We need to study and know what Jesus said and did, but we also have to know Him through a relationship. This is true for those who need to be saved and those who have walked with Him a long time. Part of what makes Jesus so unique is He is personal and relational. Do you know His commandments? Do you love Him? Have you met with Him?