John 14:15
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
When we love God we don’t need to worry about obeying God. We will obey Him.
This verse is not saying obedience is the source of love. Rather love is the source of obedience.
1 John 4:19
We love, because He first loved us.
Religion tries to reform man from the outside in. It focuses on outward rules to change the heart. God transforms from the inside out.
God will never require you to love Him beyond the measure of love He poured out on you. And when He pours out His love, it so hard not to love Him back.
John 15:14
You are My friends if you do what I command you.
Jesus is not saying He will not love us when we don’t obey Him. This will make God’s love conditional. Remember agape? “For God so loved the world.”
The Greek word for “friends” here is “philos”. The same family of words with “phileo”, as in fond affectionate love.
When we walked in disobedience, God still agape, unconditionally loves us, but we will have difficulty enjoying experientially God’s fond and affectionate love.
When you sin you will feel pain. Like when you accidentally cut yourself while shaving or cooking. Lying, lust, worry will cause pain. Guilt and shame are painful.
As sickeness is harmful for the body, sin is harmful for the soul.
As physical pain usually happens when we are sick, emotional pain happens when we sin. This build-in warning system is called conscience. Now, to sin and not to feel pain is dangerous. It means we have a seared conscience.
Sin interrupts our peace with God.
When we sinned, our conscience hurt. We feel unworthy to fellowship with God. We must stop first whatever we are doing and remind ourselves that we have an advocate against the law, Jesus Christ. That He washed us and had forgiven us at the cross, that God accepts us unconditionally and we therefore must forgive ourselves. It is only after we have a pain free conscience, can we again emotionally enjoy our fellowship with God.
1 John 2:1
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;
Please note that when we sin, we must immediate let Jesus’ blood clean our conscience.
Religion would have us take a pause and have our conscience beat ourselves first for some time before receiving Jesus’ forgiveness. We should not do that. Even in the natural, we don’t do that.
For example, when we accientally burn ourseles with match sticks, we don’t wait awhile to let the lingering pain teach us a lesson before running to the medicine cabinet. No. We try to stop the pain as fast as we can.
It is the goodness of God that leads a person to repentance, not painful conscience. And no father enjoys seeing his son in torment.
In fact, one reason why the Old Covenant sacrificial system was done away was because God wants people free from the nagging consciousness of sin.
Hebrews 10:2-3
Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, once purified, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.
In summary, I believe God will love (agape) us whether we obey Him or not. But continuos enjoyment of friendship with God is only possible when we live a life of obedience.