The following is from an online daily devotion by Jerry Bridges of the Navigators.
Devotional for Friday, March 7, 2014
The Acceptable Motive
Today's Scripture: 1 John 5:2
"We love God and obey his commandments."
Read it online at the Bible Gateway: (NIV) (NASB) (KJV) (The Message)
Although obedience is the primary way we express love to God, it's not the same as love. Love is essentially a motive. "Love is a verb, not a feeling," the saying goes. Indeed, Jesus said we're to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44).
In another sense, however, love is not a verb but the motive that prompts and guides other verbs—certain actions. I love my enemies first by forgiving them for their harmful actions toward me, then by seeking their welfare in appropriate ways. Love needs other verbs to give it hands and feet. This can be seen in 1 Corinthians 13 where Paul used love as a noun, the subject of a whole list of action statements: love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, and so on.
The converse truth is that love gives validity to my actions and makes them acceptable to God. I can seek my enemies' welfare so they won't harm me again. That's manipulation, not love. It's looking out for my welfare under the guise of looking out for theirs.
Love for God is the only acceptable motive for obeying him. This love may express itself in reverence for him and a desire to please him, but those expressions must spring from love. Without love, my apparent obedience may be essentially self-serving. I may fear God's punishment or his withholding of blessing, or I may conform to a certain standard of conduct because I want to fit in with the Christian culture around me. I might even obey simply because I have a compliant temperament.
All these motives may result in outward obedience, but not obedience from the heart. Only conduct arising from love is worthy of the name obedience.
The text for this devotional comes from the award-winning NavPress devotional bookHoliness Day by Day by Jerry Bridges. For more information or to order a copy, visit theNavPress website.
Visit The Navigators Resources website for more devotional resources.
