18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. (John 14:18-24 ESV)
We do what Jesus commands because we love him. Obedience to God is a function of our love for him. So when we don’t live the way God commands us to live, it’s because we don’t love him. More plainly speaking, when we sin, it’s because our love for that sin is greater than the love we have for God. If our love for God was greater than our love for that sin, then we wouldn’t commit that sin because we’d think of God in contemplating whether we proceed with that sin or not.
The next time you find yourself disobeying the commands of God in your life, ask yourself this question: Are you in a relationship with God because of what he can do for you or are you in relationship with God because you love him?
We know from the Bible that God pursues a relationship with us because he genuinely loves us. Jesus says we are pursued by him so that we wouldn’t be orphans. Jesus' pursuit of us causes us to experience the immutable love of God. It is because we experience that incredible love that we would genuinely live trying to please him. That is the work and nature of love.
Pray that we can confront sin in our lives by the love God has for us, and our love for God.
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