Jesus said the greatest commandment was “to love God with all of your heart, soul, and strength” (Matt 22:34-40) In addition, Jesus said, “if you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). It’s not possible to keep any of the commandments until you do the greatest one first.
You must love God and others to want to keep His commandments. As 1 John 4:7-8 states, anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, but anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that includes your enemies (Matt 5:44-48). This means loving people enough to avoid harming them and also loving them enough to apologize when you fail to love them as you should.
Fear of repercussion can only do so much to prevent people from sinning. Fear only makes them hide it and lie about it. In the Old Covenant, the death penalty functioned as a deterrent to prevent most people from sinning. However, people still overcame their fear and broke the law anyway, hoping they were clever enough to avoid getting caught. Only the people who truly loved God were the ones who resisted sin or repented immediately afterward, rather than continuing to sin in secret. David is an example of such a person. Love can change a person’s intentions and prevent them from causing harm in the first place, or lead them to apologize when they do make a mistake. When you love someone, you won’t want to harm or disappoint them. In other words, love is a greater motivator for resisting sin and doing what is right, rather than fear.
John said in 1 John 4:18, “There is no fear in love because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” John received this revelation because, in the New Covenant, believers have access to the Holy Spirit and no longer need fear as a primary motivator to follow God. It’s the Holy Spirit that was promised to circumcise our hearts (Deut 30:6, Jer 4:4, Ez 36:25-27, Joel 2:28-32, Acts 2:16-21, Rom 2:29, and Col 2:11) and give us the power to overcome sin nature so that we can accomplish the task of keeping God’s commands. A man will have more power to resist adultery if he is resisting because he loves his wife, rather than simply because he fears getting caught. In a situation where a person believes they won’t get caught, they are more likely to succumb to temptation because no one will know, so there are no social consequences. However, there may still be other consequences down the line, and people can get exposed after many years of sinning in secret, often when they are at the peak of their lives. However, when we love God, we maintain integrity even when we can get away with it. What we do when no one is looking reveals who we really are.
Examples: When Potiphar’s wife seduced Joseph in Genesis 39:6-10, his response was, “How could I do this great wickedness against God?” Joseph loved God so much that he refused to sin against him by giving in to the advances of his master’s wife. In Daniel ch. 3, the three Hebrew boys were willing to get thrown into a furnace because they loved God so much that they would rather die than sin against him by worshiping the government’s idol. God supernaturally rescued the Hebrew boys from a furnace by protecting them, and they were freed. Joseph went to prison under false charges of sexual assault, but he was released and made second in command in Egypt. Our love for God leads to faith in Him, and we will keep His instructions, no matter the circumstances. This level of faith, powered by love, is what pleases God (Heb 11:6).