The Love of God

April 17

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome,” I John 5:3.

It is not surprising that the God who identifies Himself as “love,” I John 4:16, would establish His relationship with man on the foundation of His commandments.

It is in the keeping of the commandments that man may have the privilege of interacting with our Holy God, for we know that sin separates man from God.

Psalm 139:7-12 assures us that God is omnipresent, that He sees us wherever we are, in whatever state we may be—“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go to the Heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths of the sea, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the morning…even there Your hand will guide me and hold me fast”—but His being aware of us does not mean interaction with us if we have sin that stands between us and Him.

Because God desires a relationship with man, Jesus came to deliver us from the sin that separates us from the Holy One. Because He bore our sin and its punishment—death—we can be alive forever and be forever in the presence of the Almighty.

Because Jesus kept the entirety of the law in our behalf, we receive His righteousness in exchange for our sinfulness when we accept Him as Savior and Lord. When we have given ourselves fully to the One whose propitiatory death in our behalf establishes His claim on our lives, we discover that the keeping of the commandments is not grievous, as we are told in I John 5:3.

Pleasing the One who loves us becomes our delight. “Walking in the light, as He is in the light,” I John 1:7, becomes our joy. Our old habits no longer interest us. Our old sins no longer tempt us.

How can we so fully embrace our new life?

“Because we love Him who first loved us,” I John 4:19.