Impossible Journey?

“He who has My commandments, and keeps them, he it is who loves Me, and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.” John 14:21  NASB

Keeps them – From Adam until now, no man has been able to fulfill this requirement.  Plenty of men have had the commandments, but not one has kept them.  What are we to do?  You love Yeshua.  You love YHWH.  So do I.  But everyday we falter.  Everyday we slip and slide through life, trying our best to live up to what we know, discovering that we don’t know enough and that what we do know already condemns us.  Did Yeshua really set the bar so high that no one can jump over it?  Some days it certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?

There is only one solution to this human predicament and it isn’t grace.  Grace is good.  Grace is an absolute necessity.  But grace is ultimately forbearance.  Grace ultimately overlooks sin, counts it already paid for, assigns the deserved punishment to another.  Grace does not empower me to keep the commandments.  It only provides a way to remove the previous crushing burden.  Grace gives me hope, but I must turn that hope into obedience.  I know God’s plan.  Keep the commandments.  I know God counts my faith as righteousness.  But I still face the impossible journey.  I just don’t seem to be able to put His plan into action.

That’s because I don’t need a plan.  I need a partner.

If one travels the road alone, he may fall.  But if two travel together, one will hold up the other.  I need a partner who has been down this road before, who knows the way, who points out the potholes and the ditches and who can hold me up when I start to fall.  I need a partner who has kept the commandments, knows how difficult that is and is still willing to walk alongside me on that old road.  Without my partner, I just can’t make it even if grace set me free to travel this road.

The Greek verb here is tereo.  It means “to guard, to observe, to attend to carefully.”  Here the verb is a present active participle.  The grammar is important.  This means that the action of the verb is right now, as we are going along.  It also means that this participle acts as an adjective, adding to or describing the noun.  What is the noun?  It is you and me.  “The one keeping the commandments” describes us.  Look very carefully at this grammar.  Yeshua speaks about those who are in the process of keeping the commandments.  But notice the translation implies that Yeshua is speaking to those who already keep the commandments.  You and I are in the process of keeping the commandments.  That’s called trying!  We are not people who have already kept the commandments.  That would be dying!  The only point in my life where I will be able to say, “I have kept Your commandments,” is when my journey is over.  Until then, we are in the process of keeping.  Some days we progress faster than others.  Some days we fall harder than others.  But as long as the partner is walking with us, we are in the process of keeping – and we are loved by the Father.

If we reflect on our travel thus far, we will undoubtedly conclude that we have not kept the commandments.  But if we hold hands with the traveling partner, we will discover that we are still walking.  The journey isn’t finished yet.  We can keep on keeping.  There is still time to get to “kept.”

Topical Index:  keep, tereo, guard, commandments, John 14:21