TRUE LOVE FOR GOD

1 JOHN 5

This is love for God: to keep His commands. And His commands are not burdensome

(1 John 5:3).

What does it mean to love God? Our first reply may be that when we love God, we feel an emotional affection for Him, one that supersedes all other affections. And this is true, though it does not go far enough. The Bible tells us that our hearts are exceedingly sinful and deceptive. How do we know that this God we love is the real God? Perhaps our God is a product of our imagination, or perhaps real truth about God is mingled with our imagination to produce a distorted view of God. It is easy to love this kind of God because He is little more than a reflection of ourselves and our ideas. We love ourselves, and we love the God we imagine.

The Bible tells us that those who love God believe in His revelation in the Bible—particularly concerning the work of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord—and obey His commands. John says we can know that we love God’s children when we love Him and obey Him. Then he says we love God by obeying His commands (1 John 5:2–3). In other words, it all boils down to obedience.

Love in the Bible is first of all a principle, not an emotion. Those who love God are committed to obeying Him. In order to obey Him, we have to know Him and His Word. There are numerous apparently tough things in the Bible, things that go against our grain, things that don’t seem “loving.” It may not seem “loving,” for instance, to obey God and favor the death penalty for murder. It may not seem “loving” to agree with the elders of your church when they are forced to declare someone excommunicated for refusing to repent of some sin. But the Bible says that true love for God supersedes our own feelings and inclinations. True love for God will retrain our feelings as we obey His written Word.

In John’s day the Jews claimed to love God and to obey His law. But John says that their love was counterfeit and their God was false because they did not accept Jesus as Messiah (1 John 5:5). Their idea of obedience involved keeping not only what the Bible said but also many burdensome man-made rules. John says that the commands of the Bible are not really burdensome once you start obeying them (1 John 5:3).

CORAM DEO

Ezekiel 36–37

1 Peter 3

John says that faithful obedience “overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4–5). If we don’t see Christianity overcoming the world, there can only be one reason: Christians are not living faithfully. To see victory for the Gospel in our generation and to spread God’s kingdom, we must recommit to obeying God in every area of life.

For further study: Joshua 24:14–22 • John 14:21–24

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