Love God More than Anything Else

Daily Devotional

John 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

It is not what you say that determines the extent of your love for God, it is what you do. Show that you love God more than anything else by keeping his commandments.

Keeping the commandments of God will take more than you making it a ritual; that was one of the failing of the religious leaders of the day. It was for them merely a duty or an obligation, rather than being done out of a true desire to please God. What they missed was that you are better positioned to keep the commandments if the motive for doing so is that of a true love for the Lawgiver. It was a love for God that motivated Joseph to turn down Potiphar’s wife and say “how can I do such a thing and sin against my God.” If he was motivated by a love for self or a love for Potiphar’s wife, his action would have been the opposite.  

A natural offshoot of being motivated by your love for God is that you give greater precedence to pleasing God than anyone and anything else. Every time that we fail to keep God’s commandments it is because we put our love for something or someone else above our love for God. And so Jesus told His disciples in John 14:15 that “if ye love me ye will keep my commandments”. What Jesus was communicating to his disciples was that they had to get to a place where they love Him more than anything else to keep His commandments.  Jesus was not asking them to do something that was outside of their reach as they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to love Him at this level. It is part of the reason why the first fruit of the spirit that was identified in Galatians 5:22-23 is love.

Given that you have been empowered to love God more than anything else in this world, choose to make Him your most important love relationship by consistently keeping his commandments.

Life Application: Do whatever it takes to consistently keep God’s commandments including hiding his word in your heart.

Prayer: Lord, let my love for you exceed everything else. Help me to hide your word in my heart so that I don’t sin against you. In Jesus name, amen.