Love precedes obedience
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” A simple if-then statement from Jesus found in John 14.
I have looked at it a thousand times, yet it was not until today that I saw it with understanding.
Here are the facts, implied by the verse:
1. If you do not love Christ, you will not obey Him either.
2. If you do not obey Christ, you must not love Him either.
For a while, I would have said that the conclusion drawn from the facts to be this: You must obey Christ in order to show/prove authentic love.
But that is dead wrong.
It is off the mark. Jesus knew that without love, there would be no obedience. Attempting to obey in order to create or prove love is equivalent to trying to produce light in order to create a lightbulb. Love is the foundation and motivation for following Christ in full obedience.
Therefore, the conclusion should look more like this: You must love Christ in oder to obey.
The words of Jesus found in Mark 12:30 chime in unison with this conclusion: The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Without love, effort to obey will lead to failure. Love precedes obedience.
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[...] The Lord turns our hearts to love Him (2 Thes 3:5), and that is point #5 of what this blog is about: Love precedes obedience. [...]
Great point. Love and obedience certainly go hand in hand. I’ve starting watching Mike Bickle’s 12 part series on the first commandment, it’s great stuff so far, only watched the first two videos but it gets me fired up.
He makes a point that there are attempts even within the church to redefine love into something that has nothing to do with Jesus, and that loving God has nothing to do with obedience, and how wrong and dangerous that is. Because God requires we love Him on His terms, the way that He dictates.
I’ve taken that to heart to the point of starting to memorize the ESV version of John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Jonathan, thanks for commenting. What you said about the church redefining love reminds me of 1 John 2:3-4.
It’s interesting that John, of all the apostles, carefully recorded and emphasized the love/obedience connection drawn by Jesus (which connected back to the law).