Fusion

Our heart should consist of a fusion of love and obedience. Obedience that lacks love is legalism. Obedience for its own sake can be nothing more than perfectionism, which leads to pride.

I'll be the first to admit that: I don't know everything, I am not perfect, I am not better than you, and, quite simply, I don't even want to give you the impression that I know everything. Still, something inside of me consistently wants to earn God's grace. If you feel this too, then we both want to offer God perfection so He will accept us. In other words, we are saying that Jesus is not enough. We need to add something to what He did.

Lets give this up and accept His gift.

Keeping that in mind, when we were regenerated we were given a new nature. We now desire to become more and more like Christ. It now grieves us when we sin. We stop forcing other Christians to become less hypocritical, because we now actually worship God and not other Christians. We begin working to take the log out of our own eye. This is where love and obedience meet.

"He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." - John 14:21

Obedience to God's commands comes from your heart. If I were to ask you, "Do you love God?" you might respond quickly, "Yes!" However, if I were to ask you, "Are you obeying God?" would you answer yes as quickly? Yet I would be asking you the same question.

Don't beat yourself up over what you've done. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Failure is an event, not a person. Repent (turn away from it and ask for God's forgiveness) today and ask for God's power to help you become more obedient/loving to Him.