If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments
Clay Curtis

Christ the Lord said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 15: 14.)

The substance of a man's message reveals whether or not he keeps Christ's commands or is without law to Christ the Lord. Christ commandments are just that, his commandments. Christ our Commander charges us to believe on him, to follow him in public baptism, to remember him at the Lord' s table, to go forth and preach his name and to love our brethren. But it is he who makes the command effectual in the heart. When he speaks the words of spirit and life into the hearts of his messengers he reveals the glory of his person, in his work and his gracious commands. His messengers then declare Christ's glory in his person, his work and his commands; as Christ's word is preached, through the Spirit of Christ, the Voice effectually commands his sheep and they follow him.

On the contrary, the messenger who comes in his own name speaks Christ's commands as if they were his own. He omits the glory of Christ found in all of his gracious instruction, leaving sinners thinking they can obey without Christ who alone must make his instruction glorious in the heart by his grace. Such a man is offensive to Christ, and to the believer, because he unlawfully exalts himself to the office of commander thus disobeying the Lord while lording over God's heritage. He has put himself in Christ's throne and if he preaches the power of Christ the King then he will have to step down from his self-appointed position.

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: