How do English readers understand the verb ‘command’ in Jesus sayings?

[KerimF]

One cannot trust or hope or love simply by virtue of trying to obey the command to do so-those things come from the inside as a result of grace, or they do not come at all. And yet, they are an obligation for man- because they're simply the right thing to do-and that which we were created to do- and we have the choice as to whether we'll do the right thing or not, to choose good over evil or not. So, how to we acquire these virtues? By taking the first right step of faith, in response to grace, of acknowledging our dependency on God in order to have them. We have no righteousness on our own, apart from Him. Anyway, I like the way a 4th century bishop, Basil of Caesarea, summed up right relationship with God:

“If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.”

The essence of what you like telling me here I usually hear from my Muslim friends after I replace the word God (of Christians) with the word Allah (of Muslims) and I replace the name of Jesus (of the Gospel) with the name of Mohammad (of the Quran). If they do good to someone they do it just because their Allah says to do it. Also they were told that by grace of Allah, all their sins will be forgiven if they have observed all what they are supposed to do to please Allah.

I wrote many posts here to show, briefly, what I learnt from Jesus (not from anyone else). Naturally, I have no more reason to accept Jesus in my life by faith after He helped me discover the logical answers of 'all' important questions about life which I was looking for. In other words, Jesus came to save me from my greatest weakness 'ignorance' which every human baby is born with. Naturally, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus is indeed my 'Light of knowledge' under which I was able to walk, without confusion and fear, on the Path that leads to God’s Realm of Love.
As you see, I can't call myself a Christian because a Christian in any formal Christian Church or Denomination around the world (with no exception) is not supposed to see in Jesus the Divine Perfect Teacher (the all-knowledge God). So I am just an independent student of Jesus taking advantage of what I learnt from Him to feed my soul with the growing joy of God's Love while I live God's Unconditional Love towards all others {Matthew 5:44-45}.

Real teachers don't command (don't need to impose their knowledge on their students).
For instance, imposing rules (said social, religious or political) on the multitudes is necessary in the material world only. And these rules are based always on the human instincts (actually of the rulers). These instincts are simply God's instructions embedded in every living thing (including the human flesh) for the survival of its species so they have nothing to do with God's Unconditional Love.

 

[fhansen]

The essence of what you like telling me here I usually hear from my Muslim friends after I replace the word God (of Christians) with the word Allah (of Muslims) and I replace the name of Jesus (of the Gospel) with the name of Mohammad (of the Quran). If they do good to someone they do it just because their Allah says to do it. Also they were told that by grace of Allah, all their sins will be forgiven if they have observed all what they are supposed to do to please Allah.

I wrote many posts here to show, briefly, what I learnt from Jesus (not from anyone else). Naturally, I have no more reason to accept Jesus in my life by faith after He helped me discover the logical answers of 'all' important questions about life which I was looking for. In other words, Jesus came to save me from my greatest weakness 'ignorance' which every human baby is born with. Naturally, as I mentioned earlier, Jesus is indeed my 'Light of knowledge' under which I was able to walk, without confusion and fear, on the Path that leads to God’s Realm of Love.
As you see, I can't call myself a Christian because a Christian in any formal Christian Church or Denomination around the world (with no exception) is not supposed to see in Jesus the Divine Perfect Teacher (the all-knowledge God). So I am just an independent student of Jesus taking advantage of what I learnt from Him to feed my soul with the growing joy of God's Love while I live God's Unconditional Love towards all others {Matthew 5:44-45}.

Real teachers don't command (don't need to impose their knowledge on their students).
For instance, imposing rules (said social, religious or political) on the multitudes is necessary in the material world only. And these rules are based always on the human instincts (actually of the rulers). These instincts are simply God's instructions embedded in every living thing (including the human flesh) for the survival of its species so they have nothing to do with God's Unconditional Love.

Im not sure what you’re getting at here at all. God has the right to command; He’s the Creator. And yet we disobey and cannot obey to the extent that we’re apart from Him, so it’s a sort of catch-22. We cannot do the good we know that we should do. Christ is the answer. He comes to us and reveals the true God, a God worth believing in, the God of love who’s always been on man’s side while rebellion and enmity came from us, not Him. We turn to Him as we lose faith in ourselves, loving Him in return. Then obedience begins to flow of its own accord, for the right reason now.

 

[KerimF]

Im not sure what you’re getting at here at all. God has the right to command; He’s the Creator. And yet we disobey and cannot obey to the extent that we’re apart from Him, so it’s a sort of catch-22. We cannot do the good we know that we should do. Christ is the answer. He comes to us and reveals the true God, a God worth believing in, the God of love who’s always been on man’s side while rebellion and enmity came from us, not Him. We turn to Him as we lose faith in ourselves, loving Him in return. Then obedience begins to flow of its own accord, for the right reason now.

There is nothing wrong in what you say.

By the way, my Muslim friends also used to tell me what I hear you say now:
"Allah has the right to command, He's the Creator".

After all, it is natural for them to say this because they are supposed to see their Creator as the Powerful Supernatural Ruler/King who created the huge universe in order to look for obedient followers and slaves; among humans Created on one of the zillion planets, we call Earth. By the way, this is mentioned clearly at the beginning of their Quran; as being one of the most important/crucial statements in Muslim's faith. Therefore, talking about the One Will/Energy of the Father in Heaven and Jesus, unified since before Creation by the Divine Spirit of Love (the Holy Spirit) is the greatest blasphemy in Islam's faith.

I mean; if you learnt from Jesus that you are created to worship and glorify God (so you likely also believe that our Creator is just the Father in Heaven) you have no choice but to also learn from your Church/Denomination how to do it properly. And I assure you that you will feel great while you observe, as possible, whatever is supposed to please the Powerful Creator you know. For instance, my Muslim friends, for example, feel the same while they observe the rules/rituals commanded by their Allah.

 

[bling]

On my side, I lived several times what Jesus says:
"But when they shall lead you, and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye: for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy Spirit".

I have also, been led to do much more than I knew how to do.

 

[bling]

While trusting God to no limit (this is how a human can love his Creator) is, to you, an objective, it is a necessity to me in my life.

To be clearer, let me suppose I got, for free, a powerful computer. But there wasn’t a user's manual with it.
In case I don't trust the company that produced it, every time I have a malfunction while using it, I likely blame its maker(s). So, I don't bother myself to find out what I missed to know about its structure and how it could be run properly.
But, if I am sure that the computer I got is made perfectly, anytime I face something wrong while running it, I would also be sure that I still have a lack of knowledge about some parts in it. And I try my best to discover what I missed to know about it in order to take advantage of this precious gift as much as possible.

This is why Jesus called His advice of Loving God (not obeying, worshiping, praising or glorifying God) the Greatest One in His message. In fact, without trusting God's Will fully (to no limit) in everything one may face in his life, he can be sure that he won't discover things other than what the instincts of his mortal body needs to know (it is usually called 'scientific knowledge).

Besides being a professional engineer (running a private business since many decades), by revealing on the Gospel the crucial natural truths about the real world and many useful hints, Jesus helped me discover the logical answers of all important questions I was looking for. So, to me in the least, Jesus is my Light of knowledge under which I was able to walk, without confusion and fear, on the Path that leads to God’s Realm of Love.

Your analogy sound like it came from an engineer and I hear what you are saying.

Faith and Love go together, so we might start with little faith and little Love, but using the faith and Love we do have, allows them to grow.

I am really trying to address initially obtaining Godly type Love with very little trust (faith) in God/Christ, but enough to humble one’s self to the point of accepting pure undeserved charity.

 

[fhansen]

There is nothing wrong in what you say.

By the way, my Muslim friends also used to tell me what I hear you say now:
"Allah has the right to command, He's the Creator".

After all, it is natural for them to say this because they are supposed to see their Creator as the Powerful Supernatural Ruler/King who created the huge universe in order to look for obedient followers and slaves; among humans Created on one of the zillion planets, we call Earth. By the way, this is mentioned clearly at the beginning of their Quran; as being one of the most important/crucial statements in Muslim's faith. Therefore, talking about the One Will/Energy of the Father in Heaven and Jesus, unified since before Creation by the Divine Spirit of Love (the Holy Spirit) is the greatest blasphemy in Islam's faith.

I mean; if you learnt from Jesus that you are created to worship and glorify God (so you likely also believe that our Creator is just the Father in Heaven) you have no choice but to also learn from your Church/Denomination how to do it properly. And I assure you that you will feel great while you observe, as possible, whatever is supposed to please the Powerful Creator you know. For instance, my Muslim friends, for example, feel the same while they observe the rules/rituals commanded by their Allah.

Alright, thank you. Thoughtful post.

 

[KerimF]

I have also, been led to do much more than I knew how to do.

Good news.

 

[KerimF]

Your analogy sound like it came from an engineer and I hear what you are saying.

Faith and Love go together, so we might start with little faith and little Love, but using the faith and Love we do have, allows them to grow.

I am really trying to address initially obtaining Godly type Love with very little trust (faith) in God/Christ, but enough to humble one’s self to the point of accepting pure undeserved charity.

Perhaps I understand the word 'faith' wrongly. It sounds to me like trusting (or believing) in someone rather 'blindly', for one reason or another, with the hope this trust/belief is worth for one to have it.

This is why I don't say I have faith in Jesus because I believe His message of Love based on my personal experiences and logical analyses exactly as I believe in many scientific ideas. Therefore, as I take advantage of my scientific knowledge to gain my daily bread (and of those who assist me at work) I also take advantage of what I learnt from Jesus (directly from the Gospel) to feed my soul continuously with God's Love towards others while I live without confusion and fear (also thanks to Jesus hints about how the 'real' world runs, by design).

 

[bling]

Perhaps I understand the word 'faith' wrongly. It sounds to me like trusting (or believing) in someone rather 'blindly', for one reason or another, with the hope this trust/belief is worth for one to have it.

This is why I don't say I have faith in Jesus because I believe His message of Love based on my personal experiences and logical analyses exactly as I believe in many scientific ideas. Therefore, as I take advantage of my scientific knowledge to gain my daily bread (and of those who assist me at work) I also take advantage of what I learnt from Jesus (directly from the Gospel) to feed my soul continuously with God's Love towards others while I live without confusion and fear (also thanks to Jesus hints about how the 'real' world runs, by design).

Let us just think about it logically:

If coming to Christ could scientifically logically be rationally thought-out and thus done intellectually then the uneducated and not so smart people would be at a disadvantage, but if “faith” is the requirement then the lowliest mature adult could come to Christ as easy or maybe even easier than the intellectual. This also makes coming to Christ a really humbling experience, because any mature adult can put their trust in a benefellent Creator.

Faith and the humility it requires is enough humility for an individual to humbly accept God’s charity as undeserved charity, so faith is needed.

 

[KerimF]

Let us just think about it logically:

If coming to Christ could scientifically logically be rationally thought-out and thus done intellectually then the uneducated and not so smart people would be at a disadvantage, but if “faith” is the requirement then the lowliest mature adult could come to Christ as easy or maybe even easier than the intellectual. This also makes coming to Christ a really humbling experience, because any mature adult can put their trust in a benefellent Creator.

Faith and the humility it requires is enough humility for an individual to humbly accept God’s charity as undeserved charity, so faith is needed.

When I wrote you, it is just about me. I have no reason, at all, not to respect whoever (or whatever) someone may have faith in. Every adult human is responsible of self. On the other hand, I even do care of those who are created to play my enemies; they helped me realize that I can be real free by not following, as a programmed robot does, my natural instincts of survival, superiority, selfishness... etc. In fact, Jesus refers to this as 'being not of this world'.

In brief, a human may have, at best, just ONE free will in every situation; following his natural instincts of survival, superiority and selfishness to name a few or react with love/care unconditionally.
For instance, one of the beauties in the human creation is that while someone follows his instincts (mainly the rather complex God's instructions of conditional branching... if... else... else... etc.) he is also programmed to have the impression/satisfaction that he has free-will in every decision he makes. So I wasn't surprised when I read on Luke' Gospel:
"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do".