Many of us have no idea what it means to obey a person of love. The reason is that the people in our experience who demanded obedience wanted to control us. And there was usually some form of punishment for non-compliance. Everything we do requires a reason, a motivation, an incentive. Obedience usually stirs up negative reasons, negative motivations, or negative incentives. And, we can understand why. That is our experience. It is difficult to imagine what it would be like to obey someone who did not control us or punish us for disobedience. And why would we obey such a person who did not demand? We will show you how obeying the God of Love, with no coercion, will be the most natural thing we will ever do and the reason for doing so will be compelling.
There are few words that would strike fear in me like the word “obey.” It began in childhood. The fear would come like an instant sharp piercing in the middle of my chest and then settle in a sick, lead-like feeling in my stomach that would hang on until I thought I was free. I had associated “obey” so closely with punishment that it meant the same thing. It immobilized me physically and emptied my mind of rational thought. By the time I was a teenager, I was a rebel. I wanted freedom from control, freedom from punishment, and certainly freedom from obedience. When I thought of God the Father, I saw Him the same way; a strict, unbending ruler with an iron hand, who would strike me down if I disobeyed. I wanted to be free from that feeling. I wanted to escape, to ignore God. I thought I was going to hell, and I did not care.
In my flawed theology, I hoped that Jesus was different. He seemed like a gentle person of love who might have a genuine interest in me. I was right about the loving nature of Jesus but what I did not know was that Jesus displayed the exact nature of God the Father. In my freshman year in college, I returned home one weekend when an evangelist was speaking at our church. He was the real deal. He had a moment-by-moment walk with Jesus and loved people like it was a volcano bursting upwards from inside him. He didn’t love for show, and he didn’t love for duty. He didn’t love because he was trying to avoid the punishment of God. He could not help it; it just poured out of him. Great things happened in the lives of many people in our church. The man looked at me with a genuine care for my wellbeing, and I was hooked. I had to have that love. I could suddenly see that all my striving for freedom was just another form of prison. Having Jesus within was the real freedom. It took much longer for me to give up my fear so I could love like this man. I gradually found that the way to loving obedience was not my working to obey the law of love; it was humbly admitting that I could not do it. Obedience was given, not achieved. But let us look at how it works.
Jerald J. Jampolsky, MD, a child psychologist, consultant, and popular speaker wrote a purely secular book but with great insight called Love is Letting Go of Fear. In it, he said that there are only two basic emotions: love and fear. All other emotions are a subset of either love or fear. Ron Sutton wrote a purely Christian book entitled Why LOVE Hates Legalism. Legalism is the controlling of people’s behavior by rule, judgment, and fear. Sutton says some of the same things as Jampolsky but from a Biblical point of view. His point is that most people think that church people are legalistic. And they are right in their assessment, but legalism is not God’s way.
We read in the Apostle John’s first letter the following:
1 John 4:17–19 (ESV)
17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us.
Obedience has a moral object. People who demand obedience always base their demands on a moral principle. It is the moral principle that gives their demands teeth, and it is hard to resist. Angry and destructive people scream moral principles. Often the morals they may chant are false or misplaced, but people become wedded to the principle as they seek to destroy the opposition. Their moral position is driven by fear. The moral becomes their own. They are the holder of their moral law, and any transgression becomes a personal affront that produces anger and retribution. Obedience to the God of love is completely different.
Much of the confusion about obedience comes from a misunderstanding about love. We may think that love consists of doing those things that please us the most. So, we love ice cream, a good movie, vacation, and people who please us. Then when people and things stop pleasing us, we no longer love them. Following this flawed definition, we see that if God is going to continue to love us, we must continue to please Him. But that is not the way of love, and it is not how God loves us. Love does not originate in self-seeking. An ingrown love becomes destructive as we desperately seek to be significant and whole without God. Genuine love originates from a source that is given to us with no strings attached. Love must be received not manufactured. Love is other focused, and it is based on freedom. When God loves us, He gives us the freedom to reject Him and love ourselves instead of Him. And, even in our rebellion, He continues to love us and draw us to Himself.
If we are to be free from the bite of God’s law and find the love of Jesus, we must never own moral principles as if we are God. We must submit ourselves to the perfection of our loving God, and we must not take His moral law as our own and enforce it like a tyrannical ruler. We, of course, will learn God’s law through the Bible, prayer, and discussion but we must not enforce it through fear and punishment. God does not do it that way. He warns us that in our rebellion we will destroy ourselves. His love, however, continues unabated as he holds forth the person of Jesus to rescue us. There is certainly a price to pay for ignoring God, but it is not God who exacts the price from us. He, in fact, paid the price Himself in Jesus so that God could justly accept us to be transformed by the love of Jesus.
When we deny our self-righteousness and humbly walk with Jesus through constant communication with Him, we will receive His love. Jesus is the source of love, and it is unlimited. Our love is limited; we need the continual supply in Jesus. When we receive His love, we can pass it on, and when we do, it has the same characteristics as the love of Jesus. The love of Jesus produces righteousness within us. In Him, the law is no longer written in stone but is written on the softness of our heart and minds.
Hebrews 10:16 (ESV)
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,”
The law of God is not an arbitrary set of rules. It is not a performance standard that we achieve to prove our obedience. The law of God establishes the parameters of loving, caring relationships. It describes what God is like and it describes what we are like when we become transformed into the image of the man Jesus. We do not become loving and caring by following the law. An actor in a TV series might claim to be a medical doctor. He might talk like one, dress like one, and do the things a doctor does but, of course, he is an actor, not a doctor. No one is fooled. When a person claims to be a Christian, attends church, reads their Bible daily, stays away from everything that people consider to be a social evil, but fails to love people without obligating them, that person is not a Christian. And, the people they hurt are not fooled into thinking that they are. I have known Christian leaders who have such a fear of failure that they try to destroy any successful Christian ministry that dares to practice in their territory. If they are not totally in control, it does not happen. They work hard, but their behind-the-scenes lies, anger, and destructive actions betray them. Their fear does not allow for a love that gives freedom. The people they hurt are not fooled.
The good part is understanding that love comes from God alone. The apostle John said that we love because He first loved us. Since all disobedience is a violation of the law of love, being filled with the perfect love of Jesus does not and cannot produce evil. We produce evil through our desire to fulfill ourselves, produce an independent significance, and please ourselves.
James 1:14–15 (ESV)
14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. 15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.
We do not need to fearfully strain upwards to meet the demands of the law when we are propelled upward and outward by the power of God’s love. We still make the decisions, but we no longer supply the power. We live without fear of punishment, and we love, not because we should, but because Jesus first loved us.
When God asks for our obedience, he supplies the power in love to fulfill its demands. The love of Jesus produces righteousness within us.
Please contact us at rescuedforlove.org for questions, comments, or help to receive the God of love.