Matthew 22:36-40
English Standard Version
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Loving Jesus isn’t just a feeling but an act of obedience. It’s an action you take to obey everything he has said. When we obey his commandment.
To say we love him says that we seek to obey and surrender to his will. That our love for him is shown and represented by our obedience to what he has said. When we obey God, we aren’t doing this from a heart posture of fear because in love, there is no fear. We aren’t doing it from a place of self-righteousness because love does not boast. It is humble. We do it from a deep desire for God’s will. We obey God’s will because of ourselves. We do it as an act of love towards God.
We shouldn’t make decisions based on fear because they aren’t decisions that are Spirit-filled but rather from love. A love to not just say we love Jesus, but we actively seek to obey him
-etty
1 Timothy 4:12