God has always required obedience. Since the beginning, God has expressed His desire for us to follow after His teachings. However, He has also made it clear that such obedience must rise out of a heart filled with loving gratitude. The apostle Paul told the Christians at Corinth that the love of Christ ought to motivate them to live for the One who had died and rose again on their behalf (2 Cor. 5:14-15).
Jesus identified the greatest command when He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Mt. 22:37). Without love in the heart, our service to God is little more than a hollow shell of what it ought to be.
On the other hand, genuine love will express itself in complete and unconditional obedience to the commands of God. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (Jn. 14:15). If we say that we love the Lord while deliberately disregarding what He teaches in His word, then our religion is nothing more than pretense. To those who were living according to human tradition, Jesus asked, “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Lk. 6:46).
God has always desired obedience from the heart. When King Saul failed to obey the voice of the Lord, he was told, “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat or rams” (1 Sam. 15:22). A lifetime worshiping God means nothing without a daily walk that is obedient to His will. Hebrews 5:9 tells us that Jesus became to “all who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.” If we would truly please God, we must learn and practice obedience from the heart.