I just read an article on your site about loving God and I thought I would contribute my thoughts, if you don’t mind. Jesus said in John 14:15 that loving Him means obeying Him. From that I believe He is saying that those who do not obey His teachings, no matter what they say, do not really love Him. Of course, this is in agreement with the statement in your article that reading His Word is one way to demonstrate love for Him because you will not know His commands unless you are spending time in the Scriptures.
But many people read the Bible and even earn the reputation as a Bible “scholar” because of their study and writings about what they have studied. But it is actually not, in my opinion, the reading of the Bible that is the loving Him but the doing of it as James says in chp 1:22-25.
The apostle John also tells us in his first letter, chp 2:3-5 that knowing God is about doing what He tells us to do, or obeying His commands. If we do obey His commands His love is truly made complete in us. John goes on to say that another way we demonstrate our love for Jesus is to love our brothers. In fact, this is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence when our hearts condemn us.
Knowing and loving God is all about doing as He lovingly commands His children. What are His commands? To believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as He commanded us.
Finally, Jesus commanded us in the “Great Commission” to go and make disciples of all nations . . . and teach them to obey everything He commanded us. A disciple is a student who carries his role much further than the typical student of today. He is one who not only learns the teachings of his master but also works to become like his master. The commands of our Master are actually few; believe and love.
Fortunately He does not order us to somehow develop emotional responses, as we are prone to define love, He simply says, I love you, I will only command you to do what is good for you and for others and I will consider it love if you will just do your best to obey what I have commanded you. Believe in Me and love as I love. Know Me, love Me.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Virgil English
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