Proof That You Love God (or Don't): Keeping His Commandments.

 Proof That You Love God (or Don't): Keeping His Commandments.


Most Christians find it easy to say, “I love God.” But do we really? Do we pass a simple but all-important Scriptural test of that love for God? Come see.

Matthew 22:36-38 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Jesus said that to love the Lord our God fully, devotedly, with all that is in us, is the greatest commandment.

Do you love God? The Bible gives a very simple test to see if you do. Please come take the test.

1 John 5:3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

To repeat, the question is: do you love God? The answer is: are you keeping his commands?

If you preached that message in some churches today, some of the hearers would be thinking, “That preacher is trying to get us into a ‘works trip’.” Well, that preacher was the apostle John, who was one of the very closest disciples of Jesus.



More importantly, this is holy Scripture, inspired by the Spirit of God (2 Peter 1:21; 2 Timothy 3:16). The infallible Word of God gives us this simple self-test: if you really love God, you will be obeying Him by keeping His commands. Loving God is not simply saying that we love Him. That’s easy; anybody can say that. No, rather, loving God is proven by a believer’s searching out God’s instructions in the Bible and dedicating himself to obeying those divine commands, instructions, and teachings. In sum, our love for God is proven not by our words or our emotions, but by our actions, by our obedience, by how we live our lives in God’s sight.

Jesus Christ Himself made this obedience issue central to His Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). To pastors, to Sabbath school teachers, to church elders and other Christian leaders I say: If you are not teaching God’s people to be disciples dedicated to obedience to the teachings of the Lord in Scripture, then you are failing the Great Commission!

John 14:15, NASB [Jesus said] If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 14:21 a [Jesus said] Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me.

21 a, Amplified The person who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me.
A true follower of Jesus, one who genuinely loves our Savior, will obey and keep the Lord’s commands. In the Scriptures above, Jesus said that keeping His commands is the proof, the evidence, that we truly love Him.

• “If you love me, you will keep My commandments.”



• Who loves Jesus? — “Whoever has my commands and keeps them”!

I don’t wish to belabor this point. Very clearly, the Bible tells us that there is a simple test to determine whether or not we love God the Father and Jesus Christ His Son. And that test is: are we keeping the commands, the teachings, the instructions they have given us in Scripture? James in his epistle stated this same principle concerning faith: “I will show you my faith by my works” (James 2:18, ESV). In the same way, we show God our love by our obedience in keeping His commands.

I suspect that every one of us, myself included, feels a sense of Holy Spirit conviction if we take this teaching seriously. I want each of us to love the Lord with 100% purity and devotion. So my takeaway from the Scriptures we have looked at is the threefold importance of:

• …searching God’s Word, the Bible, daily to learn God’s teachings, commands, and instructions to us;


• …diligently and with determination obeying those divine commands;


• …thereby building in our lives the biblically-described foundation upon which to truly love God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Did God die? If Jesus was God, and Jesus died on the cross, does that mean God died?"

Image
"Did God die? If Jesus was God, and Jesus died on the cross, does that mean God died?" Did God die when Jesus died on the cross? The answer depends on how we understand the meaning of the word die. To die does not mean to go out of existence. Death is separation. Physical death is when the soul-spirit separates from the physical body. So, in that sense, yes, God died, because Jesus was God in human form, and Jesus’ soul-spirit separated from His body (John 19:30). However, if by “death” we mean “a cessation of existence,” then, no, God did not die. For God to “die” in that sense would mean that He ceased to exist, and neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit will ever cease to exist. The Son, the second Person of the Triune, left the body He temporarily inhabited on Earth, but His divine nature did not die, nor could it. Jesus is truly God and truly man. His physical body did die; His heart stopped beating, and “he gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:5
Read more

Has Satan been given dominion over the earth until Jesus returns? If so, why was he given this authority?

Image
Has Satan been given dominion over the earth until Jesus returns? If so, why was he given this authority?. There's only one supreme Lord over all the world, and that's God. We are told in the Old Testament that this whole concept of dominion was shared with Adam and Eve. Man was given dominion over the earth to be vice-regents for God, that is, vice kings to represent God’s reign on this planet. Of course, we made a terrible mess out of it, and we were subjected more and more to the power of Satan. That power of Satan was dealt not just a significant blow but a fatal blow by Christ in his incarnation. We're told, first of all, that God the Father gives to Jesus all authority in heaven and on earth. In his ascension, Christ is seated at the right hand of God, where he is crowned as the King of kings and the Lord of lords. That was a tremendous blow to all worldly or satanic powers, principalities, and spiritual wickedness in high places. So if you ask me wh
Read more

What is the meaning of the eternal Sonship of Jesus?

Image
What is the meaning of the eternal Sonship of Jesus? Do you believe in the eternal sonship of Jesus? Was Jesus already the Son of God before His incarnation, or did He become the Son of God after He was born as a man? Where do we find it in the Bible? Yes, Jesus was the son of God before He came into this world through a woman. The expression “son of God” does not mean that Jesus was born. It was another expression referring to God. Here are a series of passages that teach Jesus existed before he became a man. That is, before He was incarnated. John the Baptist’s Statement Our first two passage summaries many details. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (NASB) John 1:1-3 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the on
Read more