Another motivation for doing the right thing is our desire to show our love for God. Love is not always something easily explained or measured. It is not always easy to measure how deep and unconditional our love can go. But God has given us some clear guidelines in His Word for how our love for Him informs our actions. Here are a few:
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15). There can’t be a much clearer connection between our walk, our actions, and how they demonstrate our love for God. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love Him, and disclose Myself to him” (Jn 14:21). Not only do we have the motivation that if we love God, we will keep His commandments, but we also have the promise of the blessing of being loved by God and having Him disclose more of Himself to us. And finally, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love” (Jn 15:10). Loving God and obeying His commandments go hand in hand.
Continuing the theme, being obedient to the “one anothers” of the New Testament demonstrates our love for God, especially the command to love one another. “But whoever has the world’s goods, and beholds his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (I Jn 3:17-18). “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (I Jn 4:20-21). We demonstrate our love for God by loving each other.
Coming full circle on the theme of obeying God out of our love for Him, we arrive at I John chapter 5. “By this we know we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome” (I Jn 5:2-3). When we have a love relationship with God, the Father, His commands are not burdensome. Instead, there is peace, comfort, and joy in obeying the Love of our life.