One Life; One Verse to Become Ramona's FridgeFront

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

ESV

Christians love a catch phrase in ten words or less.

Walk into any Christian bookstore in the country and you’ll find racks of Christian clothing and knick-knacks with phrases less than ten words designed to impact the lives of anyone who sees the lower quality cotton apparel or plastic witnessing tools.

I’ve seen hundreds of those items.

None of them hit me the same way as the nine words in John 14:15.

So often in my life with Christ I found myself going along, excusing sin. There was always some reason that it wasn’t so bad for me to do something…I’d always say that God would understand it.

I’d read John 14:15 so many times and it never sank in until one day the verse seemed to leap off the page.

It wasn’t about keeping rules and laws.

It was about love.

It was about showing someone who means everything that they mean everything.

It completely transformed the way I saw sin and the way I saw the prism through which I made every single decision. It was no longer a place where I could choose to do something I knew was wrong and ask for forgiveness later.

I didn’t want to hurt the one I love.

I know what it’s like when someone I love hurts me.

I don’t want to cause that to Him.

When you stop and realize that it’s about your relationship with Christ and it’s not about keeping a set of rules to avoid sin, then you can walk forward into your life with a new confidence you likely haven’t felt in your life. You don’t live in a state of sin avoidance. You live in a state of love and wanting to show your first love how much He means to you.

It becomes a life focused on showing love to Him. A result of that is that you begin to show love to others. You want to make other people smile. You want to be the person God uses to bless others.

You want to show the love you share with your Lord.

And it’s not that hard for anyone to do. If I can do it, you can do it.