In part 1 and part 2 I have extensively described love in terms of obedience.  I conclude this short series now by speaking about it, in terms of…

The Verb and the Motive

While obedience is the primary way we express our love to God, it is not the same as love.  Love is essentially a motive; it is a verb.  If I were married, I am to love my wife as Christ loved the Church (Ephesians 5:25).  For every Christian, Christ Himself commands that we are to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).  In each instance, love is used as a verb; not a feeling.  While Disney, Miramax, Chinese soap shows/movies and popular radio will tell us that love is a noun, something that we fall into… Scripture again paints us a completely different picture: love is something we do.

As a motive, love is that which prompts and guides other verbs and actions.  For example, I love my enemies first by forgiving them of their harmful actions toward me, and then by seeking their welfare in appropriate ways.  The verbs here are forgive and seek.  Love always needs other verbs to give it hands and feet, for by itself it can do nothing.  This is clearly seen in 1 Corinthian 13 where the noun love is used by Paul as the subject of a whole list of action statements.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

While this passage is too often misused for romantic relationships, the context in this passage is to the Christians in Corinth; the message about how to love one another is about people within the Body of Christ, that is followers of Jesus.  In relating to brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to be patient, and kind.  We are not to envy, and not to boast, and so on.  It is genuine love that drives us bear all things, to believe, to hope, to endure.

To do all these things is to be obedient to Him; and being obedient means we love Him.

Moreover, it is love that gives validity to any of our actions and makes them acceptable to God.  We could choose to seek the welfare of our enemies so they’ll be nice to us and not harm us–but such is manipulation, not love.  Hence, love for God is the only acceptable motive for obedience to Him.  This love may express itself in a reverence for Him and a desire to please Him, but those expressions must spring from love.  Without the motive of love, our apparent obedience may be essentially self-serving

In a negative sense, we may fear God will punish or that He will withhold blessings because of our obedience; our abstaining from sinful action is not out of love but out of fear that we’ll be found out or feel guilty afterwards.  In a positive sense, we may seek to earn God’s blessings through obedience and righteous acts, or we may conform to a certain standard of conduct so as to fit in to the surrounding Christian culture.  We could even obey God outwardly because we want to appear mature, obedient and “good” to parents and authorities.

Both these motives, negative and positive, may result in a form of outward obedience, but inwardly, none are obedience from the heart.  Such obedient behavior may appear outstanding to our friends and parents, but to God it is not acceptable because it does not spring from a motive of love to Him.  The only conduct that is worthy of the name of obedience is the conduct that arises from love.

We must love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, AND we must obey Him wholeheartedly and diligently.  You cannot have one without the other.  It is vain and futile to think that you can fervently worship Him in song in church when there is no accompanying fervent obedience to Him and what He has called you to do.  Consequently, you can be a good, good boy or girl via precise and exact obedient to God’s commands of holy living and still do so in vain and futility if your actions are not motivated by love for Him.

The beauty is that if we can obey God lovingly and love God obediently, there will be an everlasting joy in our hearts for the supremacy of Christ in all things.  As the Apostle said in 1 Corinthians 13:8, love never ends.  It cannot fail.  This simple affirmation refers to love’s everlastingness or permanence as a divine quality, for it outlasts all failures.  Paul strengthens his own point on the permanence of love by comparing it to the spiritual gifts which the Corinthians highly prized: prophecy, knowledge, and tongues, all which will have an end.  But only one spiritual gift will transcend this age and this earth into the eternal state of glory when we see God face to face, and that is love.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I wish I could say I have this joy in my heart from loving and obeying the Lord, but for now I only see in a mirror dimly.  But I pray that we will all soon see face to face and know fully.

Grace to you and peace from our God,
Alex Leung

SDG

[Love and Obedience: Part 1, Part 2]