Who is the one who loves God?

Who is the one who loves God? Many people think that to love God is to give tithes, give offerings, be the first to come to the church, give donations, etc. I want to tell you that this does not prove that we are true believers of God. Being a true believer goes far beyond our works. To be a Christian and to love God is to live a life consecrated to God, take up our cross and follow Him every day.

The Bible tells us:

21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

John 14:21-23

As I said in the opening paragraph; we can do all good work and be punctual, but none of that determines that we are people who really love and fear God, and that love itself goes much further. If we could find a meaning for the word love, it would be something completely complicated, since we can not define the word love perfectly. We would say: “Love is giving”, “love is this or that”, but not dear brother, love is much more than that and I think that the best definition of love is “God”.

The best and greatest love shown in the entire history of humanity is the life of Christ given for our sins on the cross of Calvary. There is no love that surpasses the love of Christ, there simply is not and never will be.

Do we love God? How can we show that we really love Him? Simple, verse 21 gives us light on these questions, for it says: “He who has my commandments, and keeps them, that is he who loves me.”

We have the powerful Word of God, and in it are written the commandments of our God, and we must not simply read it, we must seek to keep His Word and be sanctified every day through it.

When Jesus teaches that loving Him is expressed through obedience, He dismantles the idea that love is merely emotion or outward religious activity. True love for God is revealed in the quiet decisions no one sees—in the moments when we choose holiness over temptation, forgiveness over bitterness, truth over convenience, and humility over pride. Many people profess to love God with their lips, but their daily choices contradict their confession. The kind of love Jesus describes is not sentimental; it is transformative. It touches our desires, our priorities, and our behavior. This love leads us to surrender our will to God’s will, not out of fear but out of joyful devotion, because we understand that His commandments are good, perfect, and life-giving.

When Christ says that He and the Father will “make their home” with the one who loves Him, He reveals one of the greatest promises in Scripture: God dwells with the obedient heart. Obedience is not a burden—it is a pathway to fellowship with God. The presence of God becomes more real, more intimate, and more comforting in the life of the believer who walks in His Word. This is why sin distances us not only from holiness but from communion. We cannot cling to Christ while holding tightly to what He came to set us free from. The believer who loves God will seek to walk in the light, not perfectly, but sincerely. And when we fall, the love of God draws us to repentance rather than excuses. This is the sign of a true disciple: not perfection, but a heart that continually returns to obedience because it longs for God’s presence.

Ultimately, loving God is impossible without understanding His love first. Scripture says that “we love because He first loved us,” reminding us that obedience flows from gratitude, not obligation. When we contemplate the cross, the sacrifice of Christ, and the mercy that reached us when we were far from Him, our hearts are stirred to love in return. A believer who meditates on the gospel cannot remain indifferent. The more we understand the depth of Christ’s love, the more naturally obedience becomes a delight rather than a duty. And it is in that place—where love produces obedience and obedience deepens love—that we experience the fullness of what it means to belong to God. Therefore, let us seek not only to profess love with words, but to demonstrate it daily through lives that reflect the beauty, truth, and holiness of our Lord Jesus Christ.