If spiritual health is having more of the Holy Spirit, then how can we position ourselves to experience more of Him? Two essentials are obeying God and loving / enjoying god. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love” John 15:10. In part 1, we discuss the importance of obedience. Loving Jesus and obeying His commands are inseparable, and result in experiencing more of Jesus!

Commandment-keeping does not usually communicate a loving relationship to us. It brings up images of begrudging obedience, or doing something other than what we want to do. But obedience is life-giving and leads to more of Jesus, which is the definition of spiritual health: more of Jesus!

John 15:1-17: We did an episode on Abiding already—5 elements from John 15 and 1 John 1. We’re going to zero in on one of those elements: commandment-keeping, or obedience, as a key to spiritual health. But the underlying truth that supports everything we’ll talk about with reference to commandment-keeping is Abiding in Him—our relationship with Him. That is the key to spiritual health. 

Look what Jesus describes in v. 11: These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. The fullness of Jesus’ joy in us. That was Jesus’ goal in speaking these things to us. In the verses just before Jesus has just spoken these things: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” These are the things He has spoken so that their joy might be full.

First thing: our commandment-keeping is grounded in His love for us. This has to be clear from the first. Our commandment-keeping does not produce His love for us. It does not earn it. His love for us is prior—He shows His love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. So righteousness through commandment-keeping is not a condition for Christ to love us. 1 John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” God’s love for us is first and foundational. It provides the possibility that we could love Him back, because He made a way for us. He is the propitiation for our sins. This makes it possible to be loved by God and for us to love Him.

Second thing: Loving Him and keeping His commands is inseparable. John 14:15 says it plainly “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” That’s more than a command. It’s a promise.

John 14:21: “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 14:23-24a: “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”

Loving Jesus means keeping His Word. It is the sign that we love Him.

Third thing: Our commandment-keeping is a pathway to deeper abiding in Him. Jesus modeled the full life for us. He is the embodiment of Spiritual health, of goodness and fullness. And He kept His Father’s commandments and abided in His love. Those two are inseparable—fullness of joy in the Father’s presence and keeping His commandments.

Might help to dig in a bit to what Abiding in Christ is. I take it to be a rough equivalent to being Full of the Spirit. It’s to experience the fullness, or a greater measure of His presence. The fact that abiding in Him is not just our automatic state as Christians is shown by the fact that Abiding in Him is a command. It’s the only command in John 15:1-10. If it’s a command that must mean it’s not just an automatic state for a Christian. Just like “Be filled with the Spirit” is a command in Eph. 5:18. That means, I think, that the state described by abiding or filling with the Spirit is a greater measure of His presence in our hearts, a greater experience of His grace and goodness in us. Jesus lived in that state. And we can experience more of it by obeying His command to abide, first of all, and then by keeping His commandments.  

Fourth thing: Our commandment-keeping is empowered by the Spirit. 

John 14:15-16: 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.”

The Spirit helps us keep His commandments. He is our Helper, who enables us to keep Jesus’ commands. 

Fifth thing: What are His commandments?

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 1 John 3:23

And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 2 John 1:4-6

Our commands are Faith and Love. All commands are rooted in faith and love.