If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. —Jesus, John 14.15 NASB
Ordinarily I go with the NLT, but that translation renders it, “If you love Me, obey My commandments.” The word “obey” is actually a future-tense verb. True, future tenses can be translated as commands, but only if they really won’t convert into proper English, or fit the context, as future tenses. This one works just fine. So a better translation is found in the NASB… and the NET, NJB, and NRSV. It’s not actually a command, but a statement of fact: If you really do love Jesus, you’ll do as He said… and if you really don’t, you won’t.
He doesn’t say this in order to manipulate people into obeying Him. That’s usually what you get out of it when you translate it “If you love Me, obey….” That’s usually what gets preached when people use that version: “You don’t really love Jesus if you don’t obey Him; so obey Him, and prove that you love Him.” That turns our relationship with Him into a system of Brownie points: “I did this, that, and t’other thing for Him, and that sufficiently proves I love Him for this week, so when I die and want to go to heaven, we’re good, right?” We try to achieve a relationship with Him—and since we’re saved through our relationship with Him, which is supposed to be brought about by His grace, what we’re actually doing is trying to achieve our own salvation. We’re trying to stay saved by sucking up. Manipulation breeds manipulation.
That is not at all what Jesus teaches here. He is not saying, “If you love Me, obey…” and trying to nudge us into proving our love. There’s nothing to prove. He knows already whether we truly love Him or not—whether we really do want to follow Him and be with Him, or whether we claim Him as Lord because we think it’ll contractually obligate Him to save us. He already knows whether we’re priming ourselves for heaven or hoping to avoid hell. He already knows whether our intentions are good or selfish. He knows His sheep. (Jn 10.14) Where we wind up comes as no surprise at all to Him—though it may to us. (Mt 25.31-46)
In fact it’s the other way round.
So if you’re naturally producing fruit, you’re His. If you’re not—if you have to struggle to do so, or it comes incredibly hard for you, or you produce it but you’re a bit resentful about being obligated to behave yourself—you may actually not be His. He’s not really your Lord; you’re your own Lord, and you’re just paying Him lip service because you’re hoping it’ll make you deserving of His salvation—even though salvation doesn’t work like that, and never has. Or, if you’ve given up on producing any fruit at all, and figure being saved by grace means no fruit is necessary, He’s definitely not your Lord. To you, He’s the guy who holds your afterlife insurance policy… but you never read the fine print, which might be in your favor, and might not.
The fruit of loving Jesus is quite obvious. His teachings are an expression of who He is, so if you love Him, you will love His teachings, and try to follow Him by following them. You will not try to weasel out of them by claiming they’re for an old dispensation, or were given to show just how impossible God’s standards are, or are too idealistic to be practical, or are too impossible to even try, or require Jesus-level degrees of faith and righteousness before they can be done. You will make no excuses for not making the effort, because you will make the effort. And you’ll likely fail. And you’ll try again anyway—because Jesus said to, and that’s good enough for you. You love Him enough to fail while following Him, than to succeed in any other way.
If you don’t love Jesus that much, don’t despair. Pray. Ask Him for love. He has enough and to spare.