Jesus said to his disciples: "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love."
"I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete."
REFLECTION:
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love."
When I hear the word command, it implies that someone is setting the rules and either through fear, coercion or opportune obedience, we comply.
Jesus says, If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love." It is helpful, in fact very thoughtful and loving, because the Commandments are a guide to heaven, to God. The commandments are a gift from God to us. They are the way one expresses love to one another. Since the time of Moses they have perdured.
When we admire someone or want to be like them, we start doing as they do. My eight year old grandson admires his 16 year old cousin. So he follows her around and talks with her, picks up a book to read with her. We model our lives on people we admire (hopefully saints), their qualities, how they do things, how they pray, how they treat others, and get to know them as best we can through biographies, letters they wrote, sermons they gave, etc. They obeyed the Ten Commandments exemplified in their lives.
In following the commandments, we draw closer to Him. He will transform us.
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