John 14:21 - Love and Obedience Go Hand in Hand.

John 14:21 - Love and Obedience Go Hand in Hand.

John 14:21 (TLB) The one who obeys me is the one who loves me. 

  Obedience to God's commands comes from your heart. When you 
begin struggling to obey God, that is a clear indication that your 
heart has shifted away from Him. Some claim: "I love God, but I'm 
having difficulty obeying Him in certain areas of my life." That is a 
spiritual impossibility. If I were to ask you, "Do you love God?" you 
might easily respond, "Yes!" However, if I were to ask you, "Are you 
obeying God?" would you answer yes as quickly? Yet I would be asking you 
the same question! Genuine love for God leads to wholehearted 
obedience. If you told your spouse that you loved her at certain times but 
that you struggled to love her at others, your relationship would be 
in jeopardy. Yet we assume that God is satisfied with occasional 
love or partial obedience. He is not. 
  Obedience without love is legalism. Obedience for its own sake 
can be nothing more than perfectionism, which leads to pride. Many 
conscientious Christians seek to cultivate discipline in their lives to be 
more obedient to Christ. As helpful as spiritual disciplines can be, 
they never can replace your love for God. Love is the discipline. God 
looks beyond your godly habits, beyond your moral lifestyle, and 
beyond your church involvement and focuses His penetrating gaze upon 
your heart. 
  Has your worship become empty and routine? Have you lost your 
motivation to read God's Word? Are you experiencing spiritual lethargy? Is 
your prayer life reduced to a ritual? These are symptoms of a heart 
that has shifted away from God. Return to your first love. Love is 
the greatest motivation for a relationship with God and for serving 
Him. [Experiencing God Day by Day by Henry and Richard Blackaby re 
John 14:21] 

The Christian faith works through love, and the measure of one's 
love is the extent to which one keeps Christ's commandments. [Ryrie 
SB] 

We obey Jesus not by gritting our teeth and doing what we hate, 
but by depending on His power to enable us to do what our love for 
Him compels us to do. Willing obedience leads to an intimate 
relationship. [Life Principles SB By Charles Stanley re John 14:23] 

Having Christ's commands, we must keep them. And having them in 
our heads, we must keep them in our hearts and lives. The surest 
evidence of our love to Christ is, obedience to the laws of Christ. . . . 
. Where sincere love to Christ is in the heart, there will be 
obedience. Love will be a commanding, constraining principle; and where 
love is, duty follows from a principle of gratitude. [Matthew Henry 
Commentary] 

  The Master has revealed Himself to you, and is calling for 
your complete surrender, and you shrink and hesitate.  A measure of 
surrender you are willing to make, and think indeed it is fit and proper 
that you should.  but an utter abandonment, without any reserves, 
seems to you too much to be asked for.  You are afraid of it.  It 
involves too much, you think, and is too great a risk... 
  Your Lord says, "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth 
them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of 
my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to 
him..." 
  He loves you more than the love of friendship... He has given 
you all, and He asks for all in return.  The slightest reserve will 
grieve Him to the heart.  He spared not Himself, and how can you spare 
yourself?... 
  Oh, be generous in your self-surrender!  Meet His measureless 
devotion for you with a measureless devotion to Him... Whatever there is 
of you, let Him have it all.  Give up forever everything that is 
separate from Him... 
  The obligations of love will be to you its sweetest 
privileges; and the right you have acquired to lavish the uttermost wealth 
of abandonment of all that you have upon your Lord will seem to 
lift you into a region of unspeakable glory.  The perfect happiness 
of perfect obedience will dawn upon your soul, and you will begin 
to know something of what Jesus meant when He said, "I delight to 
do thy will, O my God." Hannah Whitall Smith [Time with God SB] 

The Submission of the Believer; He never insists on obedience, 
but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is 
easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning 
till night. [In His Time; My Utmost For His Highest] 

Dear Child, I watch you laboring and fretting and anxiously 
striving to achieve things for me and my kingdom.  Hear me.  Your work is 
not my primary concern.  Your work is now, has always been, and 
always will be secondary to your relationship with me. What you do will 
flow out of your relationship with me as irrigation streams flow out 
of a deep, clear, powerful river.  The river (the relationship) 
will set your motives and supply your strength.  Then your work will 
flow forth to honor me.  Any time you allow your work to come ahead 
of your relationship with me, you risk working against me and my 
purposes. Draw near to me and rest.  Seek my will at every small turn.  
Listen for my voice.  Be filled with my Spirit.  Then work with joy and 
abandon! The Source of your power, God [PostCards from Heaven by Claire 
Cloninger re Isa.40:31]