NOTES for Joh 14:21-26
The simplest things are the hardest to accept. The hardest question to answer is one that permits only two answers, “yes” or “no.” Nothing could be easier: one must decide who Jesus is. If the answer is, “He is the Messiah,” then, according to His words, everything that follows is simple. You love Him, you keep His word, and life becomes something literally unearthly. God the Creator, the Almighty, will make His dwelling within the one who loves the Son. The most uncomfortable thing here is the simplicity of the choice. You love or you do not love. You believe or you do not believe. You obey or you do not obey. It seems that I believe, yet I do not obey. What, then, does this mean? The one who loves necessarily obeys, so I do not love. And I cannot become a dwelling place? One could go on walking around this vicious circle, from which there appears to be only one human way out: since everything is so terrible and I can never fulfill the words of Jesus by my own strength, there is no point in trying. And immediately the answer comes. By our own human strength, of course, nothing will succeed. But the One who goes to the Cross for the salvation of every person will send the Comforter, who will bring to mind everything forgotten amid the bustle and raise everyone who keeps falling, even on level ground.