How Do We Know we love God?

The Bible states over and over again exactly how we are to demonstrate
our love to God. The simple answer may surprise you!
How do we know we genuinely love God? That probably seems like an odd
question to most of us. Of course, we love God, and we just know that
we love Him.

But is that good enough? Is it enough to just know and feel that we
love God? Is anything else involved?

Actually, the Bible-God's inspired Word-is clear about how we show
love to God. It is specific about what we are to do to demonstrate
that love.

God created people to have a loving relationship with Him. God reveals
Himself to us as our heavenly Father and calls us His sons and
daughters, His very children. God desires a family relationship with
us, with His showing love to us and our showing love to Him.

God is in the process of "bringing many sons to glory" so that He and
mankind can ultimately be "of the same family" (Hebrews 2:10, 11, New
International Version).

Mutually exclusive testaments?

Most people view this close, loving God-mankind relationship as an
exclusively New Testament concept and think of the Old Testament as
strictly a relationship of law and enforced obedience. But is this
view accurate? Are love and obedience really two mutually exclusive
concepts, as many seem to think?

To answer these questions we need to ask ourselves what kind of
relationship has God always wanted with mankind.

A lawyer asked Jesus Christ a vital question: "Teacher, what shall I
do to inherit eternal life?"

Christ said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?"

The lawyer quoted from the Ten Commandments: "'You shall love the LORD
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbor as yourself.'"

Jesus replied to him, "You have answered rightly; do this and you will
live" (Luke 10:25-28).

As we just read, the man asked Jesus Christ, "What shall I do to
inherit eternal life?" Eternal life was the issue. The man quoted two
Old Testament scriptures, found in Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus
19:18. Christ's response may be surprising to some: He assured the man
that he had given the correct answer and added, "Do this and you will
live."

So, to gain eternal life, it is clear that we must love God. But what
does that mean? Is love just a warm, nice feeling toward God, or is
there more to it?

Love loves

Love can be a noun or a verb. I like to think of love as a verb,
because love as an action word implies that something is happening,
something is being done.

Love (the noun) requires that someone love (the verb). For example, if
we love someone, we demonstrate our love by spending time with our
loved one. We do things with and for that person. We visit him or her,
go places together, talk to each other. We may make or buy gifts to
demonstrate that we love and value that person. We show our love by
our actions.

Since love requires action, by what action does God want us to
demonstrate our love for Him? What does the Bible say about this? Some
believe that in the Old Testament God focused only on obedience and
law, but in the New Testament we are "under grace" and have only to
"love God" in some vague way, supposing that obedience and love are
mutually exclusive concepts. But can this be true?

In both Exodus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 5:6, God prefaces the Ten
Commandments with a statement that demonstrates grace: "I am the LORD
your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of
bondage," He said.

God focuses us on His loving act of undeserved mercy, deliverance,
favor and pardon in His freeing the Israelites from slavery and
establishing them as a new nation. He extended grace to them, doing
something wonderful for them that they did not deserve.

In verses 9 and 10 of Deuteronomy 5, God says, "I, the LORD your God,
am a jealous God . . . showing mercy to thousands, to those who love
Me and keep My commandments" (emphasis added throughout). Here we see
another example of grace, with God promising "mercy to thousands." We
see that grace is built into the Ten Commandments.

Biblical theme of obedience

These passages begin a thread that is woven throughout the Bible. The
Scriptures show repeatedly that loving God and keeping His
commandments are inextricably connected; one describes the other. God
says that we show love for Him by obedience, by keeping His
commandments.

Let's notice some of the many examples that show the connection
between love and commandment-keeping. In Deuteronomy 6:5, 6, God says,
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you
today [referring to the Ten Commandments, given in the previous
chapter] shall be in your heart."

This is the verse the lawyer quoted to Christ that we referred to
earlier. It says we love God with all our heart, soul and might by
keeping "these words, which I command you." Those specific words were
God's Ten Commandments. These words from the Bible clearly define
loving God as obeying His commandments.

Deuteronomy 10:12, 13 summarizes the response God expects from Israel
and all mankind. ". . . What does the LORD your God require of you,
but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love
Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your
soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and His statutes which
I command you today for your good?"

This tells us clearly that we love God and serve Him by keeping His
commandments, which He gave us for our benefit.

Deuteronomy 11:1 says, "Therefore you shall love the LORD your God,
and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments
always." We love God by keeping His charge, His statutes, His
judgments and His commandments.

The theme of loving God by keeping His commandments continues in
verses 13 and 22. God says we are to "earnestly obey My commandments
which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him
with all your heart and with all your soul." We love Him when we
"carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do-to
love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to
Him . . ."

Deuteronomy 13:1-4 warns us about false prophets. Even if they can
predict something that comes to pass, if they say we can disobey God
and ignore His law, then God's people are to pay no attention to them.
God says He proves and tests us "to know whether you love the LORD
your God with all your heart and with all your soul" (verse 3).

How do we prove to God that we love Him? Continuing in the very next
verse: "You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep
His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold
fast to Him" (verse 4).

Love is expressed by doing what God says

Deuteronomy 30:6, 8 continues this theme of showing love by obedience
to the commandments: "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart
[a prophecy of the coming of the Holy Spirit] and the heart of your
descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with
all your soul . . . And you will again obey the voice of the LORD and
do all His commandments which I command you today."

Circumcising the heart (conversion of the mind as described in Romans
2:29), loving God and returning to God are evinced by keeping His
commandments.

God says He will "rejoice over you . . . if you obey the voice of the
LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are
written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul . . ." (Deuteronomy 30:9,
10). "Turn[ing] to the LORD" is shown by keeping His commandments.

". . . I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His
ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments,
that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you
in the land which you go to possess" (verse 16). God tells us we are
to love Him by keeping His commandments, and God promises blessings
for our obedience.

The theme continues in the book of Joshua, where God tells His people
to "take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses
the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to
walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him,
and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul" (Joshua
22:5).

Love flows both ways

Any healthy relationship of love is a two-way street, with love
flowing both ways. In 1 John 4:19 we find why we should love God: "We
love Him because He first loved us." John had earlier explained what
he meant by God's earlier love for us: "In this the love of God was
manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the
world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the
propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought
to love one another" (1 John 4:9-11).

Romans 5:8 gives other examples of ways God has proved His deep love
for us: "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us." Jesus Christ made the
ultimate sacrifice to prove God's love for us, long before we were
capable of returning that love in any way.

The familiar passage in John 3:16 tells us: "For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life."

But belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God means much more than just
academic agreement. Belief (Greek pisteuo) means acting on knowledge:
living one's life by faith, unswerving devotion and total obedience in
the light of that knowledge.

Our God, His people

Jeremiah 31:3 talks of God's deep love for mankind: "The LORD has
appeared of old to me, saying: 'Yes, I have loved you with an
everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.'"
God has always had as His plan for human beings a loving relationship
within His family. He describes it in eternal terms as "an everlasting
love."

Verse 33 says that, in this loving family relationship, "I will put My
law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be
their God, and they shall be my people." His law is permanently
planted in our hearts and minds to show us how to love Him as well as
how to love each other.

We see this same theme of loving God and keeping His words continuing
in the New Testament. John 14:21, 23 makes this clear: "He who has My
commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me . . . If anyone
loves Me, he will keep My word . . ."

The New Testament defines love for God the same way as does the Old:
"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His
commandments are not burdensome" (1 John 5:3). God's law is not heavy,
oppressive and burdensome. As we read earlier, it was given for the
benefit of humankind.

God tells us repeatedly and clearly that we demonstrate our love for
Him by keeping His commandments, and that has been His intent from the
beginning. The commandments John discussed were not "new," but were
"the word which you heard from the beginning" (1 John 2:7). God's law
has been a law of love from the very beginning-from the creation (1
John 3:11).

Many other scriptures make it clear that keeping God's commandments is
not something we can do by ourselves. As we repent and yield to Jesus
Christ, God's Spirit enables us to allow Jesus Christ to live in us
(Galatians 2:20), giving us the desire and capacity to love God and
our neighbor.

In Luke 10:25-30, quoted earlier, a man asked Christ what he should do
to gain eternal life. Jesus told him the correct answer is "love the
LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your
strength, and with all your mind."

Love requires action, not just feelings. How do we know we love God?
The consistent, clear, biblical answer is that we love God by keeping
His commandments. GN