Obey Me and live.  Scripture: John 8.48-59

Click to read passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%208.48-59&version=NLT&interface=print

Obedience to God’s ways is not always easy; it is easier to go our own way.  And sometimes, religion can get in the way.  We can ‘feel’ okay about ourselves if we go to church, show compassion, and act better than the next guy.  Religion got in the way for the Jews who were confronted with the truths of Jesus.  They held tightly to their religious ideas rather than embrace God’s revelation to them – Jesus Christ.  So when Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die,” they were incensed and their attacks became personal.  First they called Jesus a ‘Samaritan devil’, which was a double whammy, as the Samaritans were anathema to the Jews, and a devil or demon-possessed … well, it speaks for itself.  

To obey the teaching of Jesus, to be in relationship with the Savior, is to pass from physical life to eternal life, never knowing separation from the presence and love of the Father.  In fact, our physical death means we will know the even nearer presence of the Father and his eternal love.  For as Paul said, to ‘be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord’.  (2 Corinthians 5.8)   Put another way, we know that we honor the Father, by obeying the teaching of Jesus, and loving his Word; and if we do not have a desire to honor him, if we do not have a desire to obey his Word, we must consider whether or not we truly have a relationship with him.

“I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!”  Jesus’ “I Am” statement is a claim that he is timeless … that he was, and is, and is to come.  I Am harkens back to what John wrote of Jesus in the opening verses of this gospel – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”  But now Jesus says it of himself-- I Am.  In saying that, all knew he was claiming to be God.  “I Am” ~ the sacred Old Testament name for God, ‘Yahweh’ in the Hebrew. 

He asks you as he asked then, “But who do you say I am?”  We answer by living for him.

Christine