FIRST LOVE

Jesus the Master of heaven and earth, said, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” Notice first, He says, “If you love me.”
So often this verse is reversed. We keep commandments before we love Him. We have been somehow convinced that if we keep all the commandments we are in fact “loving the Lord.” Truth is that is backwards. It is clever how the spirit of the flesh can creep into all this. Frankly, keeping all the commandments is just law keeping, and can even be legal, which produces a legalist, and not a disciple. Trouble is this reversal seems so right. Being legal seems so right, but it never is.
Keeping the commandments can lead us to believe we are loving the Lord, especially when we feed the hungry, write blogs, sing in the choir, serve on the deacon board, teach Sunday school, lead the youth group, attend 19 Bible studies a week, listen to Christian radio, read our kids Bible stories, find shelter for the homeless, become an overseas minister, become a preacher, etc. Truth is, we can do all of these things (and they are often good things) and our hearts can be as cold and hard as a frozen rock.
Jesus said, “if you love me…” The dedicated life is to follow the love life.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus