Commandments for Abundant Life (Part 2)

"A New Commandment I give unto you" 

Are inner peace and an abundant, fulfilling life of interest to you?  Do you love Jesus?  Is it your wish to be loved by Jesus and the Father?  Is it your desire that Jesus and our Father make their “abode” in you?  Are you abiding by the commandments of Christ?  After reading those ten clear teachings of Christ, can there be any doubt in your mind of the importance of doing so?  But what are the Commandments of Christ?  Do Jesus’ commandments exist in scriptures today?  Is it possible that the Gospel writers could have omitted something as essential as the commandments of Christ?

The majority of Christians could probably recite at least most of the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament, but how many of us could recite even one of the “Commandments of Christ”?

We might be inclined to say, “Well I don’t really think Jesus literally gave us any specific commandments which he actually expected us to put into practice”.  But could this possibly be true?  Did Jesus never authoritatively tell us to do some things and avoid other things?  Did Jesus never direct us, order us, instruct us, or enjoin us?  If he did, then he did in-fact, teach “commandments”. 

The most obvious of all of Jesus’ commandments is found in John 13:34: A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another”.

There can be absolutely no doubt that this in fact is a commandment --right?  After all, Jesus directly identified the statement as a commandment.  But there are many more commandments in the Gospels that we tend to overlook.  In the Sermon on the Mount alone there are over three dozen commandments; direct orders, instructions and imperatives directly from the mouth of Jesus – “commandments” by any way you may care to define that word.  If we are doubtful of the importance of the directives, instructions, and cautions that Jesus provided in the Sermon on the Mount, we need only look to this parable in his closing words:

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash. 

(Matthew 7:26-27)