Let's consider the scripture. In John 14:15, Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Since it can be shown that the old covenant commandments were issued by God, the Father, and that it was the Father God that designed and instituted the old covenant with the Jewish people, this limits the commandments that can be honestly assigned to Jesus. Prior to His death, Jesus issued one "new" commandment, "to love one another." Even though Jesus defines this commandment as new, it is essentially contained in His second commandment defined to the lawyer in a previous conversation. At this time, Jesus defined the great commandment as "To love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and strength," and the second as "To love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus' new commandment is a refinement of the second commandment of the old covenant.
According to the New Testament, the Church is not subject to the old covenant, being a completely new organization with a completely new charter, the new covenant. Therefore, the Church should concern itself more with the words Jesus spoke after His resurrection, after the new covenant had been drafted and ratified, than with those spoken before His death. We might should consider that Jesus came to earth primarily to save the Jewish nation, to deliver the Jews from the old covenant, which was given to them as a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ. However, The leaders of the Jewish Nation rejected Jesus as their Saviour and their King. He was put to death outside the walls of their principal city. This opened the door for Jesus to author a completely new charter with the entire human race. His suffering and death could now be applied to any who would accept His sacrifice on the cross as their substitution, whereby He would become their Saviour. To enter this charter takes an act of faith.
One difference between the old and new covenants is the way they are entered. The old covenant was primarily entered by birth. It was chartered with the Jewish people. Non-Jewish people could enter the charter of the old covenant by converting to Judaism, essentially becoming Jews. The new covenant is different in that no one is born into the new covenant because it is not chartered with a specific group of people. The new covenant is entered by faith concerning the author of the charter. "Faith" and "belief" are synonymous terms. To have faith is to believe. In the case of Jesus, He laid aside His royalty to come to earth to live a godly life as a man, not as God. This fact is found in Philippians 2:6-8. He provided righteousness, or salvation from sins, by dying as a man. It was not until after His death that God raised Him from the dead as King. This means that to receive complete salvation, two acts of belief must be exercised according to the charter of the new covenant. Faith, or belief must be exercised in Jesus as the propitiation of your sins in order for you to receive His righteousness. This is belief in Jesus as Saviour. However, when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He was not King. A second belief on Jesus must be exercised in order for one to become His subject, in other words, a member of His Kingdom.
This truth is best revealed by Romans 10. In Romans 10, Paul clearly states that two beliefs concerning Jesus are necessary to salvation. The first belief is accomplished by the heart and is in Jesus' death on the cross for righteousness, which is salvation from sins. The second belief is on Jesus as Lord (or King) and is stated as a confession of the mouth. The question is, "Is the confession of the mouth merely an acquiescence to the fact that He is Lord?" or "Is it a keeping of commandments He gave?"
In the sequence of events, to be saved from your sins should produce a great outpouring of love and affection for the one who provided such a lavish display of love. Hence, Jesus' words, "If you love me?" If we are grateful for the great deliverance we have been provided, then obedience to the Saviour, who has been made King over all, is a natural response. The problem has been that the New Testament has been distorted by the interpretation of the commandment Jesus issued to His Church. This commandment was interpreted to have been fulfilled by the 11 disciples by Church leaders hundreds of years ago. The term "grace" was then interpreted to mean a lack of laws, but if there are no laws of the new covenant, how do we keep Jesus' commandments? And why is it more important to obey commandments Jesus issued before He chartered the new covenant but ignore those issued after the new covenant was chartered?
In John 7:38, Jesus said "All who believe on me will have rivers of Living Water flowing out of their bellies." In this statement, Jesus is not speaking of the belief in Him as Saviour, He is speaking of the belief on Him as Lord. He that believes that Jesus is truly Lord, or King of eternity, will be careful to obey His commandments, thus keeping them. To be found in the kingdom of the one who loved you enough to suffer and die in your place is a most wonderful feeling. We cannot gain entrance to this kingdom by merely believing in Jesus as Saviour. Again, when Jesus died on the cross, He had laid aside the authority of heaven. Belief in Him will exchange your unrighteousness for His righteousness by edict of the charter He authored. However, to become subjects of His Kingdom, we must bow and obey. Those who believe on Him as King, will bow before Him and humbly keep His commandments.
Now, perhaps we need to revisit His commandments, those issued after His resurrection (Acts 1:4-5&8). The first is to wait in your present location after believing in Jesus. The scripture states that when we believe in Jesus we are then baptized into His death by the Holy Spirit. An exchange takes place by this baptism. Our unrighteousness sticks to Jesus, His righteousness sticks to us and we come out of this baptism clothed with the righteousness of God. However, once we come out of the death of Christ, we immediately stand before the King of Kings and Lord of Lords for Jesus was not raised from the dead as Saviour, He was raised from the dead as Lord. As Lord, He commands His subjects to wait for the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which is not a singular experience, but is an ongoing releasing of the Holy Spirit from inside your belly. The Holy Spirit manifests Himself as a tangible language as He flows over your tongue. The Greek word "wait" Jesus uses in this commandment means to use extreme passion in the obedience of this commandment. In the initial waiting to receive this baptism, which indicates that receiving may not be instantaneous, extreme passion may be necessary. But also in the daily releasing of the Holy Spirit extreme passion should be exercised. The baptism with the Spirit is your obedience to the commandment of your Saviour and King, it is the way that you enforce your citizenship in His Kingdom. You should never have a lackadaisical attitude toward keeping this commandment. Jesus then commanded the charter members of His Church to yield their lives to the power to witness of His resurrection, which would come over them as they yielded their lives to the gift of tongues. The final commandment issued by Jesus to His Church before His ascension was to disciple those converted by the power to witness. The final commandment is sweet to me because it indicates the power flowing through us to convince the lost of the Saviour should be so great that we will have a tendency to forget new believers after they are converted and set our sights on finding new lost souls to convince of the love of our God. The fact that Jesus had to command the Church to disciple the new converts indicates this.
"If you love me, keep my commandments." The word "keep" does not indicate a one-time act of obedience. The word "keep" indicates a lifestyle and is synonymous with the statement, "All who believe on me will have rivers of Living Water flowing out of their belly." Those who love the Lord will passionately keep the commandments. This means that nothing will get in their way, or preclude them from allowing the Living Water to flow.
The gift of tongues is many things in the life of the believer, but primarily, it is the keeping of Jesus' commandments.