How hard is it to live the Christian life?

Do we make the Christian life too hard?

In John 14:15 Jesus said that if we love Him we will keep His commandments.

Jesus said that all we need to do is to fall in love with Him, and if we do that all the rest will fall into it’s proper place.

Is it any wonder that we are commanded to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength? (see Deut. 6:5)

When the religious leaders asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was, they were asking Him a loaded question. In essence they were asking where the focus of teaching God’s Word should be? Should the focus be on the Ten Commandments, on the sacrificial system, on the laws of cleanliness, on observation of special days, or what? And had Jesus lifted out a single commandment as the most important they planed to accuse Him of de-emphasized the others. Except that there is one most important commandment, and Jesus pointed that out to them. (see Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27)

Have you and I become like the Pharisees? Do we focus so much on teaching all sorts of things about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible that we are neglecting to teach people how to fall in love with the Savior?

Jesus is telling His disciples that all they need to do is to fall deeply in love with Him.

Look at the result of our falling deeply in love with Jesus: For starters, 1) Jesus shows up in our lives (14:21); 2) our fellowship with Jesus and the Father becomes so close that it’s like that of people living together (14:23); 3) we fulfill our God-given purpose (15:5); 4) our prayers are answered (15:7); 6) life becomes fulfilling and satisfying (15:11); and 7) we don’t stumble back into our old lifestyle (16:1).

I remember my good friend Dwight Hendrick telling me that the Christian life is really simple. He put it like this: “Love God and do anything you want”.

Let’s focus on falling so deeply in love with Jesus that we obey His commandments. Then we can do anything we want.