Bethany Lutheran Church

"Obedience"

May 7, 2026

[Jesus said:] “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be  in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” (John 14:15-21)

This passage can be a hard one for us. What does Jesus mean when He says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments”?

One thing we know for sure—He does not mean, “If you really, really love Me, you will keep My commandments perfectly, and if you don’t, I’ll reject you.” Jesus knows us through and through. He knows we are sinners and will remain so for the rest of our lives. He knows, as He reminded us, that “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5b).

Think of the people He’s talking to! In just a few hours, His disciples will fall asleep when Jesus needs them most, run away when He gets arrested, deny Him with curses, and fail to show up at the cross. Even after the resurrection, they will keep missing the point, having doubts, and messing up.

No, Jesus isn’t putting a guilt trip on them—or us.

What is He doing, then? He is doing something completely different—He’s telling us how we can say “I love You” to Him. He’s giving us a way to express our love and thankfulness and happiness in belonging to Him, even though we now live in the time when He is not visibly, physically available to us, and we walk by faith with the Holy Spirit giving us life.

Think about it: under our circumstances, we can’t imitate Martha and cook Him dinner. We can’t imitate Mary and pour perfume over Him. Prayer is good, but we want more than just words. And so Jesus gives us obedience as a way to go beyond words to say, “I love You.”

Today, when we obey Him, we do it as people who know that Jesus has already won for us everything we need—salvation, forgiveness, peace, and joy with God. He has done this through His own suffering, death, and resurrection. And so now we obey Him freely, out of love—not under compulsion. We do it in the same spirit as a small child gathers a handful of dandelions for someone she loves—simply to make Him happy.

And we can be sure that it does make Him happy, because nothing goes unnoticed by God. He loves us, and we love Him—and the Holy Spirit helps us grow in expressing it, more and more, throughout our lives.

WE PRAY: Lord, You know I love You. Help me to express it. Amen.

This Daily Devotion was written by Dr. Kari Vo.

Reflection Questions:

1. Do you struggle with legalism?
2. How do you get out of it and back to Jesus’ freely given grace?
3. What kind of obedience does Jesus have in mind, here? See John 15:12-13.