If you love me, obey my commandments.

Jesus, hold up now. “IF”? That word’s loaded, layered. IF can mean something that’s conditional, or whenever, or even though, or whether (or not). I don’t think you’re asking permission in saying this, like If I may... No, you’re dropping two big things on the table: love and rules.

Ok, yeah, love needs boundaries. I get it. Boundaries protect people from controlling and twisting each other. Without them, love turns into manipulation, more like, Prove you love me by doing what I say. That’s toxic. Healthy love and relationship are shown by respecting boundaries. So you’re saying this is how you want to be loved, how you want to be known, what you are assertively saying you want the relationship to have in it. You’re naming what you want in the connection.

Still, “commandments” sound like orders. Do this or else. Prefacing it with love doesn’t mean it has to come off that way. You always offer choice, not insisting on it, not forcing someone into it. But to see things from your perspective, it’s life on your terms. Until you enter into another’s understanding, you can’t know who they really are.

You’re saying, “Step into my world if you want to know me for real.”

 You give that choice.

He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth.

 You’re not promising life will be grand if we do. You promise a Counselor, whom you call Holy Spirit. And you say that Spirit will lead into truth. Oh good, just what we need. Another proclamation of supposed facts coming from a holy spin doctor with slick marketing, fear-based fake news, propaganda, and interference from a foreign state. You say the world won’t recognize this Spirit. Oh, but we do. We’ve seen “truth” get weaponized before. Happens all the time.

All right. You get this much. You don’t say find this truth out there like we usually see it on the internet, cable tv, social media platforms, podcasts, and blogs (allow me an exception with that one for now.) This is different. You’re talking about truth that comes from inside, that is, from the Spirit you say lives in us. Not some cosmic, philosophical fog. If this Spirit is inside, something beyond conscience, really the core and essence of the soul, then that means my truth, who I am, is what you’re dealing with.

Not an esoterical, philosophical, universe-beyond-me kind of thing, but my real self.

I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you.

You’re not giving up on me then. You know my core self, the good, the bad, and the ugly. But you won’t turn away. Most love has limits. People walk when things get too real. When we realize that, we know our deepest fears and anxieties. Abandonment by those who were supposed to stay, love us no matter what, but don’t. You want the kind of relationship that sticks for good. That’s love.

When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

That’s a heavy line. So this isn’t going to last? You’re going to die? Thanks for the heads up. That’s honest truth from you at least, why you made the point about abandonment and orphans. But life again? You in your Father, us in you, and you in us. Connection, sure, but heads hurt for a long time with that kind of talk. It’s not like losing one’s identity in another, like codependency. That’s dysfunctional. But it does mean a closeness, an intimate knowing of one another. You know me better than I can know myself, and I know you in all the ways you showed us. It’s compassion wrapped in Godly-glory, judgement tempered with grace, wounded flesh on a cross followed with new life.

Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me.

You’ve circled back. Loving you then is willingness to be in your truth. It’s choosing a relationship that grows us, leads to fulfillment of one’s self and purpose. Living in community where “Thy kingdom come” is not just a prayer but a lifestyle—love for God, love for neighbor, lived out loud. It’s an abiding Spirit staying with us, shaping us, guiding us, breathing through us.

And we choose to walk in it.

Just like you said, “Love one another just as I have loved you.” (John 13:34)

John 14:15-21

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The Trouble with Jesus: Considerations Before You Walk Away by Constance Hastings

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