Why We Obey God’s Commandments (1 John 2:4-6) – Bible Study

You can’t have marriage – not a good one, anyway – without love. The very same thing is true when it comes to our love for God. If we love God, we will prove it because we obey His commandments. That is what John meant when he wrote, “If someone claims, ‘I know God,’ but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him” (1 John 2:4-5). Love and obedience: You can’t have one without the other!

Jesus himself spoke of the keeping of God’s commandments as proof of our love for him when he told his disciples, “If you love me, obey my commandments” (John 14:15). This tells us that our love for God and our obedience to God are inseparable. You truly can’t have one without the other.

John goes on to tell his readers that they are to live out their lives of love for God in the very same way Jesus did (1 John 2:6). Jesus was perfectly obedient to God, and that was because he loved God and communed with God intimately. Everything Jesus said and did were perfect reflections of a deep and abiding love for his Father in heaven.

And while we can’t in this life and on this earth be perfect in our love for and obedience to Jesus, we can follow Jesus’s example and continue growing in our love for God. As our love for Him grows, so does our ability to obey Him better and better.