Motivator...        __________ 

"Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me." John 14:23-24

Jesus said, "If anyone loves Me he will keep My words."  For it is only by love that anyone can keep God's statutes. Love is the ultimate motivator.  Fear and quilt will only move a person for so long, but when the love of God dwells in a person and that love is reflected back at God we are able to keep His words and walk in His statutes. Only love from God "has the power of undergoing all things, having faith in all things, hoping all things."  The Israelites tried for years to keep God's commands out of necessity, but continually failed.  But now that the Holy Spirit lives in us we have received the love of God, and it is this love that enables us to keep the words of Jesus, walking in His commandments.  Paul wrote, "If I make use of the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am like sounding brass, or a loud-tongued bell.  And if I have a prophet's power, and have knowledge of all secret things; and if I have all faith, by which mountains may be moved from their place, but have not love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my goods to the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it is of no profit to me."  Godly love moves us to live lives that are pleasing to God.  It moves us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, to put God before everything else, simply because we love Him more than anything else.  Love, it is the ultimate motivator, moving us to do the things that are pleasing to our Lord.

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13