“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” — Luke 6:46
This may be one of the most uncomfortable questions Jesus ever asked.
When we come to know Him, we find it easy to say that He is our Savior and Lord. But here Jesus presses on the gap between confessing Him and obeying Him. Many followed Jesus and called Him Lord, yet failed to do what He said. In this one verse He confronts that disobedience directly — and presses the same question on us: do we walk in obedience, or have we only accepted His salvation?
It is easy to have faith in Jesus and then go our own way. But if our faith does not shape how we live, that belief rings hollow.
The tension only sharpens when we read John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” The first time I read that verse I was stopped short. These are John’s words — can he really mean that? Doesn’t this contradict what we read in Ephesians 2:8-9 — “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast”? I had always understood that I am saved by faith alone, not by works, and now John appears to require obedience as well.
The resolution begins in John 14:15, where Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” A little later He adds, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching” (John 14:23-24). And there it begins to make sense. My obedience stems from my love for Christ. If I truly know Jesus through faith, I will love Him — and one of the ways I show that love is by obeying Him. Faith and obedience are not competing conditions; they are two sides of the same grace.
First John 2:3-6 carries the same logic further: “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” So obedience is more than a response of love — it is also an assurance. My desire to obey confirms that I have come to know Him. Conversely, if I claim to know Jesus yet fail to keep His commandments, I am, in John’s plain words, a liar. To know Jesus is to abide in Him.
That language of abiding echoes Paul in Galatians 5:25: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” — much like John’s “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” To abide is to walk, and to walk is to keep in step.
How, then, did Jesus walk? In John 15:9-10 He tells us: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” Jesus kept His Father’s commandments and abided in His love. Should we live any differently? Should we not obey the Lord and abide in His love? He invites us to do exactly that.
Obedience is not a New Testament innovation; it runs through the Old Testament as well. What is new in the New Testament is not just the call to obey but the power to do so. By God’s grace we have been set free from the law of sin and death, and the Holy Spirit — who now dwells within us — sets our hearts on the Lord and gives us life. So let us live by the Spirit, no longer following the desires of the flesh, but following the Lord in the obedience that flows from love.
In Christ,
David “PK” VanderKlay
