1Jn 5:2 "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments."
Joh 13:34 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another."
Mar 12:30 "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
Mar 12:31 "The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
We see here that the Word of God, the Lord Jesus, links obedience with love. That is a very practical thing as well as a sublime thing. It is also tautological. If you obey Jesus, you are loving Jesus. If you love Jesus, you would also obey him.
But one thing we cannot ignore: you cannot obey without love. Try as you might, you will fail, or you will become legalistic. Many writers have donned the theologian's hat, (myself included) and said that compromise is the greatest evil a Christian can possess. That is not true. To focus on this misses the mark. The greatest evil a Christian can possess isn't "compromise"; the greatest evil is the lack of love.
If we possess love, the acceptance that Jesus LOVES us, we will obey out of love. This is a great mystery for who can fathom the depths of love? To some degree, the exegete must leave room for the mystery of love in obedience. To analyze it is to reduce and denigrate its profundity. Yet it is also very simple - so simple that even a child can understand: If you are in love with someone, no matter whether it is a husband, a mother, a friend, a teacher, or a brother, you'd obey that person. The converse holds true. You can't obey him or her without love.
I've heard the great theme of obedience to Jesus expounded without this inclusion of love except to guilt the listener. "If you don't obey Him, you don't love Him." There is even a whole book written on the theme of compromise and yet not one word of encouragement to the reader on how much Jesus loves us! Terrible, terrible. The words of Jesus is true,
Mat 23:2 "The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat,
Mat 23:3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
Mat 23:4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger."
The people of God are crippling under this weight of not knowing that Jesus loves them. How awful! But it is not the writer's fault in that he is deceived by the Enemy.
However there is a paradox: You won't know the Love of God until you obey. Once you obey, the love of God floods you. So you see, they go hand in hand. You can't and won't have one without the other.
Where there is divine love, there is no law, for the Love of God fulfills all the Law and the words of the Prophets. May the Lord Jesus bless you and show His love divine. In these dark and last days it is only the love of Jesus, and hence Jesus Himself, that can rescue us from unbelief and darkness into the kingdom of light where faith, hope and love reign.
