A Reflection - Obedience or Love?

Like many of us, I was raised in a faith tradition that taught the concept of what I call an “Angry God”. We were taught long lists of actions and beliefs that were required and those that were forbidden. Any violation could end us up in the no-man’s land called Purgatory or, even worse, Hell. It was if an easily ticked-off God was just waiting for us to mess up so that we could be punished. But does this really square with what Jesus taught us?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught us of a loving heavenly Father. Later in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself” [Matthew 22:37-39].

It is interesting that Jesus placed that act of loving above any other particular action. The concept of a loving heavenly Father enhances this “greatest commandment”. God, our heavenly Father, loves us and desires that we love Him in return. When we truly love someone, we do the things they like and avoid doing the things that they do not like.

In the Gospels, Jesus taught us the things that God likes and the things that He does not like. We should follow his teaching out of love and not out of fear of punishment. There is a reason for this: if we do something out of love, we strive to make the person we love happy. However, if we do something out of fear of punishment, we tend to stick to the letter of the law and look for the grey areas to skirt the hard parts. Which do you think is more valuable in the eyes of our heavenly Father?