Feb 17, 2011
You Can’t Separate Love and Obedience
Bring your mess to God, but don’t expect to hang on to it.
The story of the Prodigal is a great starting point: yes, God will take us in with all of our doubts, sins, and messy, complicated flaws. God doesn’t want us to come to him perfect.
How could we?
But when we become God’s people, his adopted children, and those joined to him through the Holy Spirit, obedience needs to enter into the equation if we dare speak of loving him.
God loves his people, but he wants his people to demonstrate their love through obedience.
In the book of Deuteronomy we read the words love and obey together in chapter six because we can’t say we love God unless we obey him. However, we also won’t obey God unless we love him.
God is not looking for people who will just obey him without loving him. He also won’t have much patience for love without obedience. How many marriages would last if husbands never listened to their wives?
We can turn God into a tyrant, but we can also turn God into a pushover. The reality we find in scripture is a highly relational God who wants intimacy with his people—intimacy that isn’t marred by destructive decisions or selfishness.
He gives his love to us because he wants to change us, to make us more like him. In changing, we’ll find that the old things we once valued no longer carry the same appeal. It’s a process, but it’s one that is well worth it. God loves us and he’ll patiently stick with us while we figure out what it means to be loved by God, to love him in return, and to obey him out of love.
This post is part of Bonnie Gray’s Thursday Faith Jam on love. For more posts, check out Bonnie’s post “Giving Myself Permission to be Loved.”
“He gives his love to us because he wants to change us, to make us more like him. In changing, we’ll find that the old things we once valued no longer carry the same appeal. It’s a process, but it’s one that is well worth it. God loves us and he’ll patiently stick with us while we figure out what it means to be loved by God, to love him in return, and to obey him out of love.”
And I’m still growing.
) I want to continue to grow in Him until the day I see Him face to face.
I love that it’s about letting go of your mess and becoming more like Him.
There are some great one-liners here, Ed; each one worthy of a post in their own right. I especially love, “We can turn God into a tyrant, but we can also turn God into a pushover.”
Exactly! And after the love-motivated obedience: joy! (I’ve been spending a lot of time in John 14-15 lately.)
Thanks friends for sharing your thoughts on how you process this and how you’re learning more about God’s love for you.
Thanks for this post Ed. A ton of solid content in this post.
Really encouraging to my heart.
Thanks again!
I’m with Ray.. SO many great one liners. You are so totally quotable!!
“Bring your mess to God, but don’t expect to hang on to it.”
That’s one to remember..! Love changes us… the question is do we dare trust Him enough to go through the pain of change. Love encourages us to believe.. YES.
Thanks, Ed!