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Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.¹

During my conversations I often hear the statement, “I love God.” Disheartenedly, many of those who claim to love God, exhibit no knowledge of God’s Word. Is possible to love God and yet not know him? By study and observation of the Scripture, Jesus defines what love of God looks like. Yes, he promises that those who love him shall be loved by the Father and himself; yet Jesus presupposes that those who have and keep his commandments are those who may rightfully claim that they love God. To claim a love of God is to first have a knowledge of what pleases him. He defines the kind of love that is acceptable to him; we cannot assume a love for God yet have no knowledge of him nor a desire to know him. Jesus encapsulating the most important commandment states, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other command greater than these.”² God states that he seeks after a people who worship in Spirit and Truth.³ I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.⁴

Yet the paradox is that no one can fulfill the requirement of the law without the help of the Spirit. For there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.⁵ It is actually God who first loved us! For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.⁶

I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.⁷ God is faithful and gracious; he will not turn away a repentant heart. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.⁸

Jesus Christ came to win back sinners. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us . . .⁹ But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.¹⁰ For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.¹¹ There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.¹² For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.¹³ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.¹⁴

I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.¹⁵