June 15th. Day 15 of walking through “Reasons to Rehearse the Gospel Daily” — Part 1 of “A Gospel Primer for Christians” by Milton Vincent.

Today’s reason — Obedience Borne of Love.

About this reason, Vincent says this...

“To love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength is the greatest commandment in the Law. {Mark 12:28-30} If I could simply fulfill this one commitment, I would gladly fulfill all others as a natural matter of course.”

He goes on to say...

“So how can I come to love God with all of my being? {1 John 5:3} The Bible teaches that genuine love in my heart for God is generated by an awareness of His love for me, {1 John 4:19} and nowhere is the love of God more clearly revealed than in the gospel.” {Romans 5:7-8, John 15:13, Ephesians 2:4-5}

And Vincent concludes with these thoughts...

“Therefore, preaching the gospel to myself as a great way to keep God’s amazing love before my eyes, so that I might experience its power to produce in me a passionate love for Him in return. Captured by His love in this way, my smitten heart increasingly burns to do His will and feasts itself on doing so.” {John 14:31, John 4:34, Psalm 40:8}

I couldn’t agree more with this reason to rehearse the gospel daily. If God is Love (which, He is {1 John 4:16}), our belief in Him and trust in His sin, Jesus, as our Savior (the way He made for us through the gospel because of His great live for us), then that great love MUST compel us to obedience borne out of a desire to reciprocate that love.

Changed lives change lives. Once God’s Love changes a life by the transformational truth of His Word, that life is spurred on to share that transformational truth with others through love for God and obedience to His Word.

There’s a little three letter word smack dab in the middle of the word “obedience” – DIE. We must die to ourselves daily as Christ died for us — every genuine act of obedience is borne of love.

The greatest of these is love. {1 Corinthians 13:13}

The greatest love is God’s. {1 John 4:16, Romans 5:8}