Showing our love for God

“If you love Me, you will obey what I command.” John 14:15
We can find ourselves asking the question, ‘How can I prove to myself and others that I really love God?’ Jesus tells us that it’s quite simple: Do we obey what He commands?
Now, obeying commands sounds like something impersonal, following orders like being in the military. It conjures up thoughts of duty and obligation, something you just have to do, whether you like it or not. When we hear the word ‘commands’ we tend to automatically think of the Old Testament law, that by and large feels pretty irrelevant to us. Is that what Jesus means? Do we have to keep the Old Testament law?
John writes in his first epistle, “This is love for God: to obey His commands. And His commands are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). In fact, Jesus tells us what command He has in view here. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you... This is My command: Love each other” (John 15:12, 17).
Paul writes, “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandment, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbour. Therefore love is the fulfilment of the law” (Rom. 13:8-10).
Do we go out of our way to help others? Do we treat them with respect, the way we would like to be treated? Do we love them as the Lord loves us? If so, then we are keeping Jesus’ command, and we are demonstrating that we do love God. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21).