Jesus, Paul and John tell us in many places that to love God we must keep His commandments and love His people. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments” (John 5:2). These verses show us what the heartbeat of Scripture is on this. Those that love God will keep His commandments and love His children. There is no love for God and no love for human beings apart from loving God and keeping His commandments. In fact, it demonstrates hatred for God when we do not love Christians (His children) and do not love and keep His commandments. This is based on two things. One, there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those that love God and then there are those that hate Him. Two, John 7:7 tells us that “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. People hated Jesus when He preached the Law and told people that they were sinners. God is the Supreme Lawgiver and Judge and sinners hate Him and all about Him.
The Law of God stands in the way of the comfort of sinners in their self-love. The Law stands and tells them that they are violators of God’s Law, that they cannot make up for the guilt of sin, and that they cannot do what they want. The bent of their hearts lead them against the Law and they want to live in the lusts of their pleasures of the body and mind. But the Law stands against them and their consciences. The Greatest Commandment tells them that they must love God with all of their being, but their hearts lead them to love themselves with all of their being. The Second Greatest Commandment tells them that they are to love their neighbors as themselves, but their heart tells them to love their neighbor only to the degree that the neighbor is good for them.
The first command of the Ten Commandments tells sinners that they must always have God first in all things, but sinners do not want God to rule over them and tell them what they can and cannot do. Each sinner is first in his heart and will do what he wants. The second command is not to have idols, but the hearts of men are idol factories. Some think the second command has to do with worship which then tells us to worship God as He has commanded how to be worshipped. But human beings want to worship God as they want to worship Him. The third command tells us to use the name of God and all He has to do with in a reverent way. Yet man reveres himself and will treat God with disdain in order to set up his own rule. Man is far tenderer toward himself and his own honor than he is toward the honor of God. The fourth command sets apart one day in seven to devote to the things of God in an especial way. Yet throughout the history of the Israelites the Sabbath day was violated and opposed. The same is true today. Man wants each day to be at his own disposal and each one wants to rule over all days for himself. We can see, therefore, without going into the commandments in detail how those that do not love God oppose Him in all four of the first table of the commandments. To oppose Him in these is to hate Him rather than love Him.
The second table of the Ten Commandments begins with the command to honor our parents. But of course children want to follow their own heart and modern ways so they violate this commandment. Add to that a society that wants to do away with spanking and allow children free reign of their hearts and we can see a big problem. Then we move on to the sixth which forbids murder. We see and hear about a lot of murders, but we don’t see all the hate that people have for each other. If we hate another person we have hate in our heart and we are guilty of murder. Hate in the heart is a sign of hatred for God. If we love God, we will obey His commandments. Then we come to the seventh which prohibits adultery, but people want to be free in their expression of their sexuality. But as Romans 1:18-32 shows very clearly this is really God turning people over to their sin and hardened hearts because they do not wish to keep Him in their knowledge. People will steal in many ways, lie in many ways, and yet think they are keeping the basic commands. They want to possess what they want when they want it and they think they are lord of their own lips and tongues. But the tenth command reaches the hearts in even deeper ways when it tells us not to covet. This is a direct commandment to the heart. The first command tells us that we are to have God in all things and the tenth command tells us that He is to be all in the heart.
The violation of the laws of God demonstrates a hatred for God and holiness. Deut 20:5 which speaks of those that hate God is in the context of the second command and idolatry. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” All sin is idolatry in some way and so all violations of the commands are idolatry and hatred of God. We keep the commandments from love and violate them from hatred. The hatred of God is widespread because the violation of His commandments is widespread, even in the church.
God Loves... Himself 
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