“But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46 -NKJV)
This blog, rather than stories of the things I have lately been getting into is going to be somewhat unusual. If you think that switching from the typical storytelling to releasing an essay series on something I have been learning lately is a terrible idea, blame my editor. My editor has been ghosting (unable to respond due to being in the country of Lesotho with no service) me. Similarly to the last time I was out of contact with my editor (the disaster of Ch 3 ep 4) I am going to take a step away from the usual blogging format for a little while.
What I am going to be releasing over the next few blogs is a three-part essay series on a topic that I have spent much time diving into as of late. This all began in Eswatini when one day Anna said that, “God’s love language is obedience”. I do not remember any of the context of the conversation. What I do remember is that I was sure the stance could not be correct. Over the course of the following weeks I set out to find the true answer, failed to disprove the statement, came into agreement with it, and then sought to prove the stance as true. There is not a guarantee of any answer being correct, but if we seek out the Scriptures and have an understanding of the nature of God we can come to a pretty strong conclusion of what God’s love language is.
One of the things that my friend Lianne and I learned while we determined the meaning of life one evening in Eswatini is that you should never attempt to answer a question that you do not understand. So let us begin by understanding what it is that we are actually trying to determine here. “Love languages” are the ways in which people express and receive love in a relationship. The concept of love languages were coined by a Baptist pastor named Gary Chapman when he released a book titled, “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate”. In the book, Gary Chapman outlines the five ways in which people receive and express love. They are: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, and Receiving Gifts. Understanding the love languages of friends and family members can be quite valuable as expressing love in the specific way that a person likes to receive love can be hugely beneficial to a relationship. Upon hearing the opinion that, “God’s love language is obedience” I set out to disprove it.
The first step in narrowing down what it actually is that I hoped to discover became growing in understanding of what a love language is. Because we each have both a receiving and giving love language, I realized that there are two correct answers to the question of, “What is God’s love language”. In this post, we will focus on God’s receiving love language. We will focus on his giving love language in the next post. To better understand the question we hope to produce an answer for, let us rewrite it as, “What is God’s favorite way to receive love?”. Seeing as the whole point of understanding this is for us to know how to express our love for God, we can rewrite it again as, “How can we love God in the way that is most pleasing to Him?”. This stance is built on a foundation of Scripture so I will be using various verses throughout the following paragraphs. I will be quoting them in the ESV (English Standard Version) as it is regarded as an extremely accurate translation of the Bible.
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” -Hebrews 11:6. “Without faith it is impossible to please him” seems to be a good starting point for determining the best way to love God in a manner that is pleasing to Him. The baseline is that anything that does not include faith is automatically ruled out as an option for what is His receiving love language. To have faith in someone means that you trust and are confident in them. Hebrews 11, the chapter from which the previous verse was taken, has been nicknamed “The Hall of Faith” as it is a collection of examples of Old Testament figures living by faith. It covers a number of stories, each one starting with, “By faith”. Each example of faith follows a theme of the Biblical characters having a certain level of obedience. They each believed in and followed God’s teachings and instructions despite not being able to see or understand His plans. There is an inherent level of obedience in each example of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Love is inherently greater than faith (we know this from 1 Corinthians 13:13). With these Scriptures spinning around my head, coupled with the mess of understanding what a love language even is, I looked to John 14 and 15. I will note that John 14 is where my attempt to disprove obedience as God’s love language morphed into my attempting to prove obedience as God’s love language.
In John 14:15, Christ says that, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. This is expanded upon in verse 21 when He says that, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father”. Love is reciprocated between us and the father when His commandments are kept. In verses 23-24 Christ adds that, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words”. To love God is to keep His commandments. To not love God is to not keep His commandments. One cannot actively love God without keeping His commandments. Like in Hebrews 11:6, “without faith it is impossible to please him”. Faith and obedience go hand in hand when it comes to loving God. They are necessary.
Because the purpose of understanding God’s love language is so that we may learn to love Him better, let us use a piece of Christ’s own phrasing. The phrase is for us to “Abide” in His love. The reason we abide in His love is so that we may receive love from the giver of all love so that we may, as is the purpose of this essay, reciprocate love back to Him as well as we can. Christ Himself explicitly tells us how we should replicate how He abides in the father’s love in John 15:10, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love”. So we may follow the model of the Trinity’s love by, through abiding in Christ’s love, keep His commandments. To love as does the Trinity, is that not the goal? John 15:14 states that, “You are my friends if you do what I command you”. At this point it seems clear through the teachings of Christ that the way to love the Father is in keeping His commandments. To take it a step beyond taught principles, let us continue by looking into Biblical examples of obedience being undertaken, instructed, and neglected.
The crucifixion of Christ is the ultimate act of obedience. This essay will return to take another look into Christ’s ultimate act of obedience later on. For now, let us look at John 14:31 in which Jesus states prior to his arrest and crucifixion, “but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father”. Christ proved His love for the Father by acting in obedience to what was commanded of Him. Obedience in God’s instruction is is the proof of our love.
The denial of Christ by Simon Peter in the Gospels is a tragic act of disloyalty. Three times, Simon Peter denies being associated with or even knowing Christ. Simon Peter, however, is offered his chance at redemption in John 21. In John 21:15-17 Christ asks Peter three times, “Do you love me?”. Each time, Peter replied by saying, “you know that I love you”. The first time, Christ responds to “you know that I love you” by saying, “Feed my lambs”. The second time He responds with, “Tend my sheep”. And the third He responds by saying, “Feed my sheep”. When Peter proclaims his love for Christ he is given a command to obey in order to prove the love he has.
The disobedience of Israel’s first king, Saul, led to him losing the Lord’s favor and ultimately to his downfall. In 1 Samuel 13, Saul offers sacrifices unlawfully out of fear of the Philistines as they mustered their forces against Israel. 1 Samuel 13: 13-14: “And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the command of the LORD your God, with which he commanded you. For then the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The LORD has sought a man after his own heart, and the LORD has commanded him to be prince over his people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.'” Out of the many stories of disobedience in the Bible I chose to include this one because of the Lord’s response to Saul’s disobedience. Saul, the king, disobeys the commands of the Lord and in turn his anointing as king is turned over to a man after the Lord’s own heart (David). If we do not obey the commands of the Lord we do not love Him.
The last piece of this essay will be three examples of the Lord responding to the obedience of men. The teachings given by Jesus in John 14 and 15 clearly state that if we love the Lord we will obey his commands. He teaches that we do not love the Lord if we disobey his commands. We know from Scriptures such as Jesus and Peter’s interaction in John 21 that we are given the opportunity to walk in obedience to certain commands in order to demonstrate and live out the love we have for Christ. Based on this, we understand the significance and importance of obedience, but we have not yet bridged the gap to reasonably assuming that obedience is the best way to love the Lord.
The first of the final three examples will be the faith and obedience of Abraham. In Genesis 12:1-3, God calls Abram (not yet Abraham) to leave behind his country, his country, and his father’s house and move to a land unknown to Abram. Abram was seventy-five years old and considerably well off. But when the Lord called, Abram answered. The Lord promised that Abram’s obedience would be worthwhile as He would make Abram into a great nation, blessing him and making his name great so that through him all of the families of the earth would be blessed. Over the following chapters of Genesis, more and more is promised to Abram as he walks in obedience to whatever is asked of him by the Lord. After years of obediently following the Lord, the Lord makes a covenant with Abram in which his name is changed to Abraham. This takes place in Genesis 17. After making many seemingly impossible promises to Abraham, such as a son, pay attention to the wording in verses 9-10 as God begins to lay out Abraham’s end of the covenant. “And God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised'”. God is very clear about the fact that Abraham is to keep His commandments and hold his end of the covenant. The point here is that God never gave the blessings first before Abraham walked out into obedience. He promised things that would come when Abraham and his offspring remained obedient. In Genesis 18:19 the Lord says about Abraham, “For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him”. The order of the Lord’s speech is extremely significant in that Abraham will walk in righteousness first, “so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him” second. Our walking out in obedience must always come first.
What I, in my personal opinion, I, Ben Norcia, not the Lord, view to be Abraham’s greatest act of obedience takes place in Genesis 22. Abraham knew that Isaac was the son that the Lord had promised to make a great nation through. When the Lord tested Abraham and asked for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac Abraham never even questioned the Lord’s instruction. Although it seemed backwards and against the previously made promises Abraham continued to walk in full obedience to the Lord. Isaac asks while they travel to the place where they will make the sacrifice where the lamb was for the offering and Abraham replies by saying, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son”. Even when faced with sacrificing and offering up the thing most precious to Abraham in all the world, he remained obedient to the Lord, trusting in His plan. This man who was willing to give up his life, country, home, and only son for the Lord is the one who was blessed as generously as any man in the Bible. The value God places in obedience cannot be understated. As we clearly see the importance obedience has to God, we will move ahead to the book of Deuteronomy.
In Deuteronomy, the Israelites have long been led from slavery in Egypt by Moses, but they have not yet entered the Promised Land. During the forty years in which the Israelites wandered the wilderness the Lord prepared them in many ways through Moses by teaching them, giving them the Law, and giving them blessings and promises. Deuteronomy 28: 1-2, “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the voice of the LORD your God”. The Lord promised Israel that they would be a nation high above every other nation if only they obeyed the Father’s commands. It is the obedience that is so appreciated by the Father. The Law does also create a sacrificial system to cleanse the failures to comply with the original commands so that even when the people of Israel disobeyed, they could be forgiven for their transgressions. Scripture does make it evident though that God favored obedience in the first place over sacrificial cleansing. This preference of the Lord’s is explicitly stated in 1 Samuel 15:22, “And Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams'”. Israel had hope of being exalted as a nation above every other nation if they would be obedient to the commands of the Lord.
Obedience, when not out of love, falls short. Israel fell short. Repeatedly, they sinned against the Lord and fell away from His commands. The Lord would have exalted them above every other nation if only they had remained faithful. The Lord’s blessings shine upon those who walk in obedience to Him. This leads us into the ultimate act of Love.
Philippians 2:8-11, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Christ committed the ultimate act of obedience when He, the Son of the Most High, the Spotless Lamb, the Perfect Messiah, humbled Himself to the level of obedience of withstanding the shame of death on a cross. Christ’s sacrifice was the ultimate act of obedience in the eyes of the Father. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name”. It is always the act of obedience that comes first. The Scriptures make it clear that it was because of Christ’s great love for the Father blossoming into self-sacrificial obedience that He was eventually exalted. He was given the name above every other name because He became “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”. If we go back to John 14:31 we can reemphasize that the obedience was done as a display of love. In John 14:31 Christ said, “but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father”. The ultimate act of obedience was undertaken as a display of Christ’s love for the Father. The Father, in turn, exalted the name of Christ above every other name. We also know that the response of exaltation from the Father was for Christ’s obedience. “To obey is better than sacrifice” it says in First Samuel. It was Christ’s obedience to the point of sacrifice that was most pleasing to the Lord, rather than the sacrifice itself. In obedience to the Father, love abounds.
Christ, as a man, demonstrated the ultimate way that we, as humans, can love God. It is by loving Him to the point of obedience that is willingness to lay down your own life for Him. I do not write this to make us want to go and get ourselves martyred. I write this to remind us to consider if we love Jesus enough that we would lay down our lives for Him. Would I obey Christ to the point of self-sacrifice? I am not saying that we would not. I just want us each to examine our hearts and to be sure that we would. 1 John 2: 3-6, “And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”
In conclusion, I find it reasonable to assume that the way we can love God that is most pleasing to Him is for us to walk in obedience to Him. The Scriptures from the Gospel of John make the necessity of obedience clear. It emphasizes that true love manifests itself as obedience. The examples from Scripture in which God values obedience makes it clear. Obedience results in more love, blessings, and exaltation. I do not wish to scare you into a spell of legalism. Remember that in Matthew 22, Christ says that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. The second greatest command is to “love your neighbor as yourself”. Abide in Christ’s love always. Love God. Love those around you. Stay tuned for part two. Let me if you disagree with anything written here, we should chat.
John 15:10, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love”.
John 13:34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another”.
John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”.
I appreciate the depth of thought, Scriptural research and prayer you put into this Ben! I love that you are thinking deeply about the things of God. It’s a great question to ask as to how can we give love well to the God Who has poured out His love so lavishly on us. Here are some of my thoughts. I agree that obedience is a demonstration of our love back to God, and not just an obligation of duty, but an outpouring of delight and love back to Him- evidence of a deep abiding trust and belief in Him. The way I would word what I think is: the greatest way I show love back to the Father is to love Him: to trust and believe Him. The “tell”, the “show”, the overflow of that love back to Him, is demonstrated in my obedience – in the big and the small. For many years, I believe I read “If you love me, you will obey me” more of as a you should obey and you’d better obey to prove you love me (and it’s true that obedience is a right and necessary response to God’s love poured out.) But I also believe that obedience is a natural overflow of a heart that is abiding in Him (John 15) and believing Him (Romans 4). And now, I would read it more like “if you love me, obedience comes as a response to that love.” In other words, obedience reflects that love and trust vs checking a “to do” box. I obey to respond to His love, not to earn it. It’s not about being good, it’s about loving God well. Loving and believing and trusting Him changes my want to. I might know obedience is right and something I should do, but loving Him leads me to want to as a demonstration of that love. Walking in obedience is a worshipful demonstration of the trust and belief I say I have in Him . Romans 4 (and Genesis 15 before that) demonstrate that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Before he obeyed, he believed God. He believed Who He was and what He said. And as you mentioned, Abraham demonstrated that love and trust by acting on it. It was the living overflow of a heart trusting God. So I think the outward flow of obedience starts with the inward heart work of believing Him and trusting Him, in the treasure of abiding with Him and beholding Him. Obeying Him is the walking out of that love. It’s love and trust demonstrated and in action, not to earn His love but to demonstrate how His love moves and changes us. When God loves, He acts. When we love back, we act on that love. Thanks for the opportunity to take a deep dive on this subject and to ask myself afresh “Am I willing to obey to the point of self-sacrifice?”, whatever that may look like in this season. In view of God’s mercy, how could we offer anything less than everything? (Help us to do that Lord. Show us how to say we love you too. Amen.)