If not,.... God still loves

Friday May 14th, John 14: 23 Jesus replied: If anyone loves me, they will obey me. Then my Father will love them, and we will come to them and live in them. 24 But anyone who doesn't love me, won't obey me. What they have heard me say doesn't really come from me, but from the Father who sent me. What I find interesting about this passage is that the ones who love and obey God, God will come and live in them. The word translated as “obey” also has the meaning “hold fast.” For those who don’t love God, the result is that they won’t, not just don’t, but won’t obey God. It doesn’t say anything about God not continually coming to them and working with them to learn to love God. It doesn’t say anything about God not loving them. It also doesn’t say anything about the children of God not loving them. The only difference is that in the mean time, they don’t get the joy of knowing God is already with them. When they hear the old Brenda Lee song, “All Alone Am I” it pulls on their heart strings, they know that feeling of aloneness. As Buechner puts it, “A Christian isn’t any better than anyone else, they just have some half baked idea who to thank. Life’s short, live in the knowledge of God’s love, live thankfully, and live knowing who to thank.