Obeying out of fear or love or both?

stvns78 said:

I have a general question, would you say you obey God out of fear or love or a bit of both?

I was always kind of taught to fear God and love Jesus. Fear in a parent sort of way. Of course we love him but be afraid of his wrath should we step out of line.

I decided recently to renew my walk with Christ. I took a long hard look and realized i was not being a very good Christian. I travel quite a lot for my job and come across a lot of homeless people. While i did help some here and there I would pass by many i could have helped but just didnt. I do not like the idea of giving them money that might support any habit they may or may not have. So i decided to start buying fast food gift cards to hand out to them.

One day on a walk I handed out one and then the thought crossed my head. Am i doing this because I am afraid of what God will do to me if i don't obey his commands or am I doing this because I love God and am obeying his commands?

Is it ok to obey God out of fear or should everything I do be out of love? Or is to obey God to love him regardless of the motivation on our part?

It seems to me my main motivation is to avoid the fire of hell.

I am interested in other's perspectives.

Thanks!

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When Jesus said “you will have the poor with you always but what this woman did for Me will be the one thing I will ever tell you must be preached, and that is doing for Me” He meant that it’s well and good to support the cause of helping but it’s more important to do the Father’s will in being a contributor to His Son’s immediate needs. Which she seemed to have an ear for.

As for the giving out of foodstore gift cards, somewhere there is the urge/ministry to help. It’s very commendable to use prudence to do so.

I obey out of love because if I truly feared God I wouldn't be committing the sins I do.

stvns78 said:

I have a general question, would you say you obey God out of fear or love or a bit of both?

I was always kind of taught to fear God and love Jesus. Fear in a parent sort of way. Of course we love him but be afraid of his wrath should we step out of line.

I decided recently to renew my walk with Christ. I took a long hard look and realized i was not being a very good Christian. I travel quite a lot for my job and come across a lot of homeless people. While i did help some here and there I would pass by many i could have helped but just didnt. I do not like the idea of giving them money that might support any habit they may or may not have. So i decided to start buying fast food gift cards to hand out to them.

One day on a walk I handed out one and then the thought crossed my head. Am i doing this because I am afraid of what God will do to me if i don't obey his commands or am I doing this because I love God and am obeying his commands?

Is it ok to obey God out of fear or should everything I do be out of love? Or is to obey God to love him regardless of the motivation on our part?

It seems to me my main motivation is to avoid the fire of hell.

I am interested in other's perspectives.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Precious question. My response is "both". God works out the details, and as He works out those details, we begin to do these things because we LOVE Him, and thus His love is shed abroad in our hearts, and it overflows to others in an inexplicable way. It becomes an irresistible unction to "obey" Him, and it's because we LOVE Him, as it is written, that we are to love Him with all our soul, heart, mind, and strength, as we become a "joyful giver", which delights and blesses our God's very heart.

God bless you, brother.

stvns78 said:

I have a general question, would you say you obey God out of fear or love or a bit of both?

I was always kind of taught to fear God and love Jesus. Fear in a parent sort of way. Of course we love him but be afraid of his wrath should we step out of line.

I decided recently to renew my walk with Christ. I took a long hard look and realized i was not being a very good Christian. I travel quite a lot for my job and come across a lot of homeless people. While i did help some here and there I would pass by many i could have helped but just didnt. I do not like the idea of giving them money that might support any habit they may or may not have. So i decided to start buying fast food gift cards to hand out to them.

One day on a walk I handed out one and then the thought crossed my head. Am i doing this because I am afraid of what God will do to me if i don't obey his commands or am I doing this because I love God and am obeying his commands?

Is it ok to obey God out of fear or should everything I do be out of love? Or is to obey God to love him regardless of the motivation on our part?

It seems to me my main motivation is to avoid the fire of hell.

I am interested in other's perspectives.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

A long time ago I realized theres a difference between respect and fear. The devil has made all he can so we fear God and him in an unhealthy way. Respect comes from a condition of the heart, fear comes from having an authority over you. I learned that God doesn't want to rule me, but to teach me how to be a daughter of the King. I always remember how God himself tried to teach Cain to master the sin that was knocking on his door, but Cain sinned anyway. We can now have a relationship with God through His Holy Spirit thanks to what Jesus did; thats why He is our Savior. God's wrath went on to Jesus, we are now clean by His blood. If we now sin, we can come to God and confess what we did and receive, not only forgiveness, but guidance to, like Jesus said, sin no more.

God wants us to know how His is, how is the atmosphere of Heaven, the reality of the Kingdom that makes Heaven, Heaven. The devil wants us to fear him, we forget he is to be under our feet but we don't understand the authority we have in Jesus Christ; we are His ambassadors, we are to manifest Heaven on Earth.

If you have two apples (money, time, resources, etc.) you can't give out 3 and if you have a family you really need to assess if is wise to give two apples away when you also have mouths to feed. Right now I only have apples for myself (money wise) but I do donate time. When I had a better job I used to make a budget and purposely separated money for charity. When that money was over, I knew I didn't have more apples to give. We should always remember that our family is our first ministry.

I always remember that God asks us to love Him, love others, but to also love ourselves. We forget that last command. The devil has made us think we shouldn't love ourselves and when we do we feel guilty, but God gave us the order to do so.

I use this question often to check my heart: If I die today and I am face to face with God, what's going to be the first thought that crosses my mind? The first time I asked myself that question my mind went back to my good deeds. I was checking if I did good on earth to "please Him" Then I felt the Lord say that if I think that way it means I think I am saved by works not by Jesus' grace. That was an eye opener! I was loving God because I feared Him, not loved Him. So I went back to the simplicity of the Gospel and I camp on the meaning of the Cross.

Works are a fruit, we give fruit when we are attached to Jesus; because without Him we can't do nothing. I am sure we can "do" a lot, but from my understanding He is saying we can't make an impact.

The fact that you are asking means that you do have a heart for the Lord and that you respect Him. What I suggest is that you learn about what is being a son. To learn sonship, to learn who your Father is by studying Jesus and having a relationship with Him. A prince or a princess acts like their Father because they understand their position as children of the King.

Something that helps me a lot is to ask myself if what I am doing is coming out of guilt and fear or out of identity.

Dan Mohler and Bob Haml talk a lot about identity.

God bless you!

When it's based on fear, as in anything resembling terror, it won't last. I cannot last on the grounds of fear. It will consume me, all my "works" will be done begrudgingly when I am facing a God who demands perfection from a tainted, miserable sinner. It can become a path where I try to earn his forgiveness and love with my fearful efforts, and in the end I would either go insane or start to despise God, myself and everyone else. How many fruits of the spirit would there be? It would be only a matter of time until I would collapse. I've been on that road often, and I couldn't take it. I couldn't take it the first time, and I can't take it the tenth time. My life of depression and anxiety has been ruled by fear. If someone is a slave to their fears, helpless against their own feelings and conscience which always holds them hostage, it will make one despair. So I fight my insanity now, and I will not fight fear with fear. Obeying fear leads to constant speculation and weighing of the scales, and in that mindset we are always on the run. We can only run so far if God, in our hearts, is a God of wrath who is against us.

When it's love, it's different. Fear can serve a purpose, namely to snap us out of whatever awful things we might do or have in our hearts, and then drive us into love and grace. Love and grace is where I should remain then, and I cannot last anywhere else. Perfect love will drive away fear, and terror melts, turning into healthy reverence towards a loving Father. And love, it needs to be His love first. I cannot even begin to form an idea about loving God if He doesn't love me first. He is always the first in all things. He is the first to love, because He is love, it's perfect in and from Him, while we are just stumbling fools with it.
We can't rise up in fear, but He comes down in grace, lowers Himself, washes our feet and gives Himself for us.

If I don't take the bold step to believe He loves me first, as the sinner that I am, and if I don't believe His love is more powerful, gentle, gracious and patient than any love I can see here on earth, this is what happens to me:

- My faith will be about appeasing an Angry God.
- Jesus Christ becomes not a savior but one who always demands, 10 times more severe than any Moses.
- I will weigh my imperfections against His perfection, and I will despair.
- My race of faith is about me racing against Jesus Christ.
- I can't love and comfort others with a love that I haven't been comforted with.
- In a sense I "worship" sin, fear, hell, everything awful. They become great and immovable in my heart. They are sitting on the throne, ruling over me, and I'm thinking it will never change, since Christ Himself seems to be against me.
- Whatever I do, I do out of fear and guilt. I have turned good things into a prison.
- My weakness makes me only weaker, and it will be my condemnation.
- I cannot be a child of God.

If I stand on the grounds of grace, forgiveness and love, this is what happens to me:

- My faith will be about drawing hope from a God who lowered Himself in His Son for us.
- Jesus Christ is a savior. He gives. He gives grace and a heart of flesh, I can do nothing He wants me to do without Him.
- I will weigh my imperfections against His perfection, and I will rise up in good courage, comforted.
- My race of faith is Jesus, beginning and ending in Him, empowered and guided by Him.
- I can love and comfort with the love I've been comforted with, even if I'm stumbling, I'm taking steps. Every encounter with loving grace enables me to love better.
- I worship Jesus Christ on the throne of grace, and I will not let fear, sin or hell sit on that throne.
- Whatever I do, I do out of a relieved heart. I'm not trying to earn anything anymore. Whatever I do, is not for God, I cannot give Him anything but my thanks, but what I do is for my neighbor, and I don't want to get anything in return. It's less about me doing something, and more about Him doing something through me, and He gets all the thanks. From whatever I've been set free, I want others to get free too. No prisons. I am not keeping count where I supposedly do enough or where I don't, and I can pray that His will be done in and through me.
- My weakness makes me stronger, because in our weakness His strength is perfect, and He wants us to rely on it, it is for us.
- By God's grace in Jesus Christ, I am adopted into sonship.

stvns78 said:

I have a general question, would you say you obey God out of fear or love or a bit of both?

I was always kind of taught to fear God and love Jesus. Fear in a parent sort of way. Of course we love him but be afraid of his wrath should we step out of line.

I decided recently to renew my walk with Christ. I took a long hard look and realized i was not being a very good Christian. I travel quite a lot for my job and come across a lot of homeless people. While i did help some here and there I would pass by many i could have helped but just didnt. I do not like the idea of giving them money that might support any habit they may or may not have. So i decided to start buying fast food gift cards to hand out to them.

One day on a walk I handed out one and then the thought crossed my head. Am i doing this because I am afraid of what God will do to me if i don't obey his commands or am I doing this because I love God and am obeying his commands?

Is it ok to obey God out of fear or should everything I do be out of love? Or is to obey God to love him regardless of the motivation on our part?

It seems to me my main motivation is to avoid the fire of hell.

I am interested in other's perspectives.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

It really depends on how you are viewing your salvation. It is right to both fear and love God. God is good, and His commands good. But He is also to be feared.

But there are unnecessary fears, as an example the helping the homeless thing you mentioned. Your salvation does not rest on the fact of whether you help the homeless or not. Your security should be in the finished work of the cross. But it would be a pity to stop helping the homeless, it is a good thing to do. But don't be terrified of God thinking, if I walk past one homeless person, God will send me to hell.

I obey God out of fear and I disobey God out of fear even more.

I think you would greatly benefit from reading This Book. If I could hand all Christians 3 books that they had to read, this would be one of the three.

Everything we do stems from our underlying beliefs and motives. One question you need to ask yourself is do you consider yourself a sinner who was saved, or a saint who sins? See, Scripture declares that if you have asked forgiveness that you are in fact forgiven. You don't need to fear hell any longer. If you have a relationship with Christ, then you are forgiven. Now. You are a Saint. Now.

Sanctification is the lifelong process by which we actually learn to trust that what the things Christ says about us in Scripture are true. The more you learn to trust Christ, the more you love him. The more you love Him, the more you will become like Him, and therefore the more you will glorify Him.

Many people miss the mark and are good intentioned, by act out of a primary motivation of pleasing God. God is already pleased with you.

Read the book, I think it'll help a lot.

Out of love. I have been delivered from some horrible afflictions and illness. I just feel so much gratitude that I have been able to experience life even with depression, anxiety and all of the trials and tribulations. When you come through it and see what you made it through, the feeling is enormous gratitude. I could still be back there, many don't make it out alive from certain afflictions.

stvns78 said:

Is it ok to obey God out of fear or should everything I do be out of love?

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Jesus said where your heart is your treasure will be:

19Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. matthew 6