Love - Love and Obedience (Daily Devotional)

Hello and a very warm welcome to Living Supernaturally, the daily devotion of All People's church. We hope that you've been part of this devotion series and enjoying studying God's word. Well, God's word is truly something that teaches us, inspires us and God releases His word so that we may live according to the word and He inspires and gives us power to live a supernatural life. We've been meditating on God's love and some of the instructions that we see about God's love in the first epistle that John writes. Today, we are going to continue to do that. 1 John chapter 5 and verses 2 to 3, it says, ‘by this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.’ By this we know that we love the children of God. How do we know? When we love God and keep His commandments. So, we see that there is this connection, there is a correlation between the commandments or the instructions of God and the love of God. So, if we say that we love God or if we say that we love the people of God, are we loving God and are we keeping His commandments? When we say ‘keep’ that means to obey, to walk in, like when we take special effort to guard His commandments in our own lives. So, that is the true test of knowing God and loving God or loving His people, loving His children. Verse 3 says, ‘for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments.’ Love of God equals keeping His commandments, keeping His instructions and obeying it. So, which means that you know when we say we love God, we need to ask ourselves what is my relationship or what is my engagement with the word of God? Because it is through the word of God that we receive the commandments of God. So, how am I engaging with the word of God? How am I esteeming the word of God? Am I giving enough time and space in my life for the word of God? Many times, we say and we sing we love God and we honor God and so on, but are we keeping His commandments? It's important to know that. Scripture also says in the second part of that verse it says His commandments in case you thought they were burdensome, they are actually not burdensome. Why? Because He enables us to keep His commands by His Spirit. Shall we pray? Father, we thank you for your love. We thank you for this standard or this tool of discernment by which we know that we love your children, by which we know that we love you, that is when we obey your word and when we keep your commandments. We ask that you will by your Spirit enable us to do this even today. We thank you; we give you all praise and glory, in Jesus’ matchless name we pray, Amen.

Thank you for tuning in to Living Supernaturally, for more resources to strengthen your spiritual walk, please visit apcwo.org.