In 1st John 2:3 John starts out with this phrase so that the believer can enjoy the assurance of their abiding relationship: “By this we know that we know Him”! The emphasis is the assurance to us that we have a true relationship with Jesus. “Are you,” John asks, Enjoying a personal conscience relationship with Jesus? By this statement John is making sure that his readers are not only connected to Jesus by intellectual knowledge as in a belief in a theory, but instead connected to Christ by experiential knowledge that has put into practice what they know is true.
An artist is not one that has learned how to mix paints and learned the rules of perspective…no, an artist is one who has put brush and paint to the canvas. Skill comes with practice. Rembrandt was once asked by one of his students when he would become as skilled to which he replied, “Try to keep putting the things you have learned in practice and in good time you will discover the hidden things you seek.” We will only truly know that we know Jesus when we endeavor to continually KEEP His Word! The Greek word KEEP is one that means to “attend carefully”. It speaks not only of the act of obeying but that of valuing His words so much that we don’t want to miss the opportunity of not obeying all of them!
There are things that we eat because we know they are good for us, but we don’t feel guilty if we miss them as we don’t care for their taste. Then there are those things that aren’t very good for us, but they taste so good that we won’t waste a bit and even lick the plate.
The Apostle uses a Greek word that combines the benefit of the first with the pleasure and taste of the second. The commandments that John is referencing is not the LAW but instead the words of Christ that were either given by Jesus or the writers of the New Testament. Obedience to Gods Word is usually a progression in maturity that centers upon what it takes to motivate us:
•Baby Christians: View obedience as a have to as if they are a slave responding to a master. They view obedience in terms of what will happen to them if they don’t obey. If they don’t obey, they will be punished.
•Immature Christians: View obedience as a need to as if they are an employee. They may not enjoy the work, but they enjoy being rewarded with a paycheck! If they don’t obey, they won’t be rewarded!
•Mature Christians: View obedience as a want to because the relationship between God and them is one of love. Jesus said this in John 14:15 “If you LOVE ME, keep My commandments.”
We most likely started our relationship with God viewing obedience as I have to and then graduated to, I need to but maturity happens when the I have to and the I need to becomes I want to! Immaturity is only motivated to obedience by warning and reward instead of being motivated to obey because we love Him!