John has a way of stating the truth of God simply. Verse 2 is an example of his ability to do so. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
There you have it, a simple ‘formula’ for faith… loving God and obedience to His commands.
Love and obedience, two truths, two actions…
Love God… echoes of the first of the two great commands ring in my head. Jesus was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul mind and strength… (Deuteronomy 6, Matthew 22, Mark 12, Luke 10). Loving God… it really says it all.
And love has certainly been an often repeated refrain of John’s in this letter and throughout his New Testament writings. And with good reason, it was Jesus’ summary of the law and the prophets.
Obedience… the beauty of this second facet is that it prevents ‘faith’ in Jesus from being reduced to postulates or sentimentality. Love in our time is often reduced to warm feelings, partly because we don’t understand the biblical definition of ‘agape’ which is the word for love that John uses. But by paring love with obedience John has underscored the active part of love that can be so easily lost by we sin-filled humans.
Again obedience is an often used refrain from the pen of John to describe faith in God. And a significant aspect of obedience in John’s writings is loving our brothers and sisters, which he learned from Jesus. For Jesus the second half of the greatest commandment was to love our neighbors as ourselves.
While it has been helpful to muse on love and obedience, I hear the inner voice of my Lord saying, “So how are you doing with love and obedience, Bill?”
Now I have to stop and still my heart before the Lord… and look inside.
Loving God… do I with all my heart and soul and mind and strength? Oh, golly, how I fall short of that. I do love the Lord. If I am honest, my love for God can be conflicted and watered down by love of self and others… My heart begins to cry for forgiveness and strength to grow and mature.
And similar things could be said about obedience. I do obey, but…
Father God, I would be lost if I didn’t have an advocate standing before You, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. (1John2:1). And I would be lost if I didn’t have an advocate teaching and reminding me of everything Jesus said –The Holy Spirit (John 14:26 and 15:26). God, Your love is so deep that You prepared for all my (our) shortcomings. I am, for the umpteenth time, blown away by Your grace, mercy and love. As I journal it is getting harder to type because my eyes are filling with tears of joy and tears of love and tears of gratitude. I do love You, Lord God –Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit. And I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
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