What Were Those Commandments Anyway?

This Sunday's reading is from John 14:15-21, and all too often I have listened to a sermon in which the focus is on the "Spirit of truth", and I have been left wondering where Jesus' commandments went.

‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

‘I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’

I think the danger in ignoring Jesus' commandments is that we can be misled by other spirits like the Spirit of the Age, the Spirit of "my truth", or the Devil himself into believing that we are following the Holy Spirit. 

So what where those commandments anyway? 

To love God with all your heart, mind, and soul.

To love your neighbor as yourself.

And everything that flows from that.

I think that means that if I am doing something that endangers my soul, I should appreciate it if my neighbor lovingly tries to correct me. 

And that also means that I might hear something that modern people don't seem to want to hear.

I might feel offended.

I might even call my neighbor a "hater" and shame him on social media.

Those commandments cause such difficulty.

That's probably why most revisionist sermons will probably continue to ignore the commandments referenced in John 14 and focus on something that can be more easily bent to the preacher's and his or her congregation's will like  "a more nebulous Spirit of truth".  In this day and age, when the prevailing teaching is that there is no universal objective truth, and you hear someone ignore the objective commandments, beware of any claims that they preach to the "truths".