God’s Love, Our Obedience

God’s unconditional love is available to all people. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Also, God “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

God made His love available to all people through the death and resurrection of Jesus, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8).

God’s love always initiates, it never waits to respond to our actions. Romans 3:11 tells us “no one seeks God.” Despite this, God calls us to faith in Jesus “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (John 6:44). God then instills in us the faith that we need to believe in Jesus and to experience His love through salvation “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).

Only persons, who respond to His invitation to be His children, experience His unconditional love. “To all who did receive him (Jesus), who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). Paul encouraged believers by instructing them that God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as children through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:4-5).

We must respond to His love with obedience. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Jesus said the greatest commandment was “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:36).

The Jewish leader Nehemiah describes God as “the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments” (Nehemiah 1:5). Three times God describes Himself as, “showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:6, Exodus 34:7, Deuteronomy 5:10).

God describes Himself as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and truth, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Exodus 34:6-7).

The Bible warns us, “we must pay closer attention to the things we have heard…every violation and act of disobedience received its just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect a salvation as great as this? It was first proclaimed by the Lord himself, and then it was confirmed to us by those who heard him,” (Hebrews 2:2-3).

“What does Yehovah require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8). Obedience to God’s law fulfills all these requirements.