Jesus' Commands

Most of Jesus’ directions in over a dozen categories for the disciples are applicable today.  Those words of instruction formulated the disciples’ rules for existing together, and additionally it set them on an individual walk with the Lord.  The so-called New Testament Commandments were the guide to reach those lost in a world having multitudinous devices and schemes.  Overall, his theme to them was be wise, prepare yourself for routine sacrifices, and trust wholeheartedly with a faith in God.One Old Testament commandment promised a benefit to those following it—those that obeyed their parents in the Lord would live long upon The Land the Lord had given them—Jesus made it clear that to those following his commandments a blessing would come that would not die off in this life only. “Be ye therefore perfect (complete, lacking nothing) even as your father in heaven is perfect” set a standard impossibly high, and at one point it was asked, “Who then can be saved?”  “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God,” was the Lord’s answer.  So as we read the Commandments of Christ, let us not immediately say to ourselves in response, “Oh, I can’t do that! or That’s too hard—nobody can act this way!”  No, let’s give the Holy Spirit opportunity to increase our faith at the same time as He educates us as to clear meanings of Jesus’ words of instruction and commandment. What is instruction, and what is commandment?  If we are to follow all he said, then why make any distinction between these two?  Commandments allowed them to be disciples; the instructions Jesus gave provided for them to grow as disciples.  An important category involves making a sacrifice of self-interest, betterment, or “advancement”.  Indeed, when legal matters were to be their involvement, it was better to settle and pay rather than press the point in court.  It was almost as if “being right” had not the importance of “tranquility”. Paul refers oddly to the Law of Christ.  It is in the end of Galatians 5 and on through 6:5 that he admonishes that rather than any provoking, we assume the burden of one another’s spiritual health while making a full effort to keep our own spiritual self intact.  It is impossible to successfully witness in the future concerning Christ to someone we once before had offended. Jesus said, “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.”  If the one showing or pointing out the sin is prepared to forgive, then the offense is seen only as a sin against God and His ways; not against the Christian brother.  This, then, draws that sinner closer to God and repentance can easily ensue.  Many times Jesus spoke somewhat near meanings imperatively in different ways: “Condemn not (those others around you), and you shall not be condemned”; “Murmur not among yourselves”; “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” and “Enter ye at the straight gate,” among others.  In our daily walk these are strict imperatives.  Less strong sounding are his instructions that bring us to self-sacrificing of convenience or possession.  Often, if it’s just a reference and not too real, we can abide his saying “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  But it gets very problematic for us in hearing and thinking about “Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.”  Then, too, it even gets “physical”:  “Do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also.”  Are we on our way to heaven and this a training ground to determine our worthiness to judge when Christ later takes upon himself judgment and action against sinners of the world?  Is this not a time of witnessing for us now?  The Jehovah’s Witnesses sect puts a great emphasis on being industrious and developing a personal wealth at the present time, yet Christ has cautioned “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth; lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  To become an an effective peacemaker, you must give up maintaining self-esteem; rather, it is your reasoning for peace which must prevail.  Combatants see you as “fair” and without self-interest and having no motivation other than to see peacefulness advanced.

The foregoing and additional instruction and commandment came from the fifteen or so categories of disciple action and thought, expressing:  orientation of the disciples towards the Father, towards each other, towards the world having glory and riches, towards the individual, towards those outside of salvation, towards general caring ministry to the world, and the codes for always bearing in mind a humility in service wherein we resemble “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.”  This self-sacrificing service was not without a reward, he told them:  “Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you...(as your eternal life.)—Matthew 25:34-36,46.”

In “the old days” a congregational pastor could call someone disruptive, not paying attention forward during a service and instruct, “attend to me!”  Whereupon, this person sat in abeyance till the pastor would instruct.  In general though, the “Hearken” means to give careful attention.  It combines both hearing and seeing in its root definition.  So what Jesus spoke, they, hearing, would also see him live out.  We are to do.  Always he speaks of an immediacy:  when one called to follow politely wished to excuse himself for a time before acting to tend to family matters (property evaluation, just-occurrred marriage) Jesus makes a comment that the plowman who looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.  It is never enough to resolve that, “come next Wednesday, I’ll do such and such.”  “Behold, today is the day of salvation” the Bible says.  “Today is salvation come to his house,” Jesus speaks of Zaccheus, having come down from the tree at Jesus’ calling.  (The man had repented and offered restitution to any offended or cheated by his past tax collecting.)  Jesus looks for us to change now!

The nature of our Christian walk is such that goodness as seen from it is not attributed to us individually but to Him whom we serve.  I always like to hear the athlete being interviewed on TV in the midst of great accomplishment go on to give the Lord Jesus Christ glory!  When I hear it, I rejoice!  Yet not to be overlooked is the one who Christ sees being kind and assisting to the underprivileged, “Whoever receives this child in my name (glory!) receives Me…the one who is least among you all, this is the one who is great.”  There is no distinction of meritorious service in Christ’s eyes—all are to be attended to; He has created them; we are all His Children.  To early disciples Jesus said “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”  “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me”—Matthew 11:29;  “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me”—Luke 9:23-24.  “Search the scriptures” “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you”—Matthew 7:7-12.  Now to our ears this sounds up-tempo, a challenge, even enjoyable…

The commandments he expressed were to help us in our difficulties.  “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” meaning:  You need to change if you’re going to get somewhere.  “Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.”  So, the resistance to change is not just one’s internal attitude and personal relationship to the Almighty, no, there is going to be plenty of interacting with those still in the world who give their outright opposition to the Gospel to you.  But through all their attempted and more or less successful Jesus’ commandment keeping, the disciples had assurance that “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”  When we are in church community and sin, the effect of this ripples out; it begins with one brother or sister not being rightly related to the Lord.  Sin has had an entrance to the church.   This—perhaps a harshness of speech, some selfishness, inconsiderateness, envy, etc.—washes next onto another.  And this can cease as we adhere to the Lord’s saying, “If your brother sins (against you), go and show him his fault in private”—Mathew 18:15.  In the Lord’s Prayer we know he says, “(Father) forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” and so in approaching one who understands the nature of his sin but seems helpless to resist it, we stronger ones put into operation, “Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” because of forgiveness.  One who forgives fulfills another commandment: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”  This helpfulness without taking resentment and forming lasting pique towards another who is less obedient to Christ than you is following Christ’s admonition “Enter through the narrow (straight) gate” and, come the time for reward, it is Revelation 22:14 where it says with hope, “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.

”Do you think Jesus was fulfilling his promise to them “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” when he later instructed and told them how in their lives they would always follow, not just as a group walking on the trails behind their leader, but too individually as directed by the Risen Lord?  Was this some temporary metaphor and instruction?  Almost the last recorded words of Jesus on the earth were for Peter’s ears after he led the disciples back up to the Galilee and again (or back to) to fishing, “Feed my sheep”—their meal had been fish—and “What is that to thee?  Follow thou me.”  It started with and ended on that beach with Christ reaffirming to follow and feed—this in giving spiritual truth/nutrition and directing to others’ lives as you allow Christ to fulfill this truth-telling in yours.

Here now are the personal or individual’s admonitions he gave:  Those sins I individually do (If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out) and the sin that affects others (Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?  Seven times?  answer: Seventy times seven).  A need for judging:  (“Remove the ‘beam’ sized error in your life first, then you’ll understand how to help remove the ‘splinter’ of a sin from another’s”)—this goes back to hypocrisy, or “play-acting your own ‘goodness’,” see also Luke 12:1-3: leaven—blowing your own good up out of all proportion.  Besides point by point adherence to the Pharisees’ ordinances concerning their Mosaic law, there was hierarchy Jesus was concerned about; he advised:  “Beware of false prophets”; and, curiously, Jesus had them looking ahead to their own establishment of churches and the parts they’d assume.  These restrictions were to be kept in mind:  “But do not be called Rabbi: for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.  Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.  Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.”—Matthew 23. Put aside your ambition towards gaining the place of authority; let it instead be Christ who raises you up or moves you forward—Luke 14:10 "Friend, move up higher..." he said, speaking of a dinner sitting arrangement--but this little story has wider application.

Would growth in the numbers of believers be predictable or up to their charge as the church would enlarge?  His directives told:  “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest”—Matthew 9:38; “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name… and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.  But Jesus said, Forbid him not”—Mark 9:38-40; “Go home to thy friends,” he told a lunatic healed, “and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee”—Mark 5:19. The Lord, it is, who gives increase.

It was obvious from situations in Jesus’ life and their listening to him that they, too, were entering into life that had no sure circumstances and predictability.  Yet their sustaining strength was in God, and to do their part in aligning with this lodestar, they must have hearts so atuned:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”—Matthew 22; “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness”—Matthew 6; “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell”—Matthew 10:28 (yes, God—see also accounts in Numbers 1-16 and refer to John 6:41-43, also “The Destroyer” of I Corinthians 10:10).  All this combines to the healthy state of considering God out of love, out of mindset, and out of a reverent fear.  “Go your ways: behold, I send you out as lambs in the midst of wolves”—Luke 10:3, Jesus instructed.  They could expect that the future held in store situations where Jesus’ words now would serve as the strength they’d hold to:  “Bless them that curse you;  Love your enemies, and do good; Do good to them which hate you; When they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak.  For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaks in you; When men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake, rejoice, and be exceedingly glad.”

Part of the daily taking up Christ’s cross would bring them into conflict with law keepers and teachers:  the scribes and the Pharisees.  “Agree with your adversary quickly” he told the disciples, and “Swear not at all”—Matthew 5.   “If any man will sue you at the law, and take away your coat, let him have your cloak also.” (But in so doing, such a one adds to his own sin, and God’s words of Exodus 22:25-27 come to play.  For, God who is gracious sees the affliction upon you and will deliver out of the circumstance.)  More on their self-sacrificing:  Luke 6:30—“Give to every man that asketh of thee”; In Matthew 6 we read, “Be not therefore anxious, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewithal shall we be clothed?”  Luke 21:19 records: “In your patience possess ye your souls (KJV); or:  By your endurance you will gain your lives (NAS).”  Matthew 5:42—“Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you”; and Luke 6:30—“and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.”  Such lack of struggle with man does not necessarily correlate with blind acceptance in the time of one’s prayers.  He taught:  Say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”;   “all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.”—Mark 11:24;  “When you pray, do not use vain repetitions”;  “When you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father which is in secret; and your Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly.  Note:  this same, too, applies when fasting”—Matthew 6:5-6;  “What I tell you in darkness, speak in the light: and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim (preach) upon the housetops”—Matthew 10:27;  and “Take heed what you listen to”—Mark 4:24. Pray for God to undertake for you and the kingdom routinely, then when tempation comes--to get angry with thoe who repress--you will not fall or succumb to it.

In the goodness the Christian lives out, we should remember: “Freely you have received, freely give”; “As you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.  Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely you have received, freely give.  Provide neither gold, nor silver”: “You shalt love your neighbor as thyself”; “A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another”—John 13; “Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”—Matthew 5; and parents who have children in difficult marriages of their own need to refrain from interfering, if it is a marriage having had God’s blessing upon it: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”—Matthew 19:6.