John 14:23 English Standard Version (ESV) Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

“If I give you my word I will keep it.”

That is a promise from our self to others. The ability to keep that promise is condition upon our ability to control every circumstance. We make promises and then find out we cannot always keep them.

Here Jesus asks us to keep His word. That sounds like He wants us to keep His promises but we do not have the power to keep God’s promises. It is God who keeps His promises. So what does Jesus mean when He says “keep my word”?

John 1:1 English Standard Version

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Word here is logos which is the spoken word. We have His words which are contained in our bibles. If we love Him then His Word is near and dear to us. Keeping His Word can literally mean not to substitute His words with our own. If we place His Word in our hearts, then they are available for recall by the remembrance that the Holy Spirit initiates.

1 John 1:1 English Standard Version

The Word of Life

1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life

In the practical sense His Word is life. If we keep His Word we have His life.

Galatians 2:20 English Standard Version (ESV) I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Jeremiah 33:6 English Standard Version (ESV) Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security.

Jeremiah 33:6 King James Version (KJV) Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them, and will reveal unto them the abundance of peace and truth.

It in both these cases is the dwelling place of mankind. It refers back to houses in the cities. This is where the Lord will do the healing and bring a cure to what ails us.

It is easy to fixate on the variations in translations, prosperity and security rather than peace and truth. It is important to recognize the pull of those words. Prosperity and security have a different audience than peace and truth. Different people are looking for different things and if our focus is on what we can get rather than what God is doing, then we will miss the will of God for us in our own home.

Does the revelation of prosperity and security mean that we possess either? Does seeing a thing give us the right to take it? Is it ours merely because God has shown it to us?

A proper understanding of the will of God will help us answer these questions but in order to have a proper understanding, we have to have a better relationship with our God. If our focus is on what God can do for us, we lose sight of what God is doing in us.

What is our sickness? Sin.

What is the cure? Jesus.

That is the simple answer but what about this dwelling place where all the prosperity, security, peace and truth will be seen? More important than that how does all that fit into God’s will for us?

John 14:23 English Standard Version (ESV) Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.