When we put our faith and trust in Yeshua (Jesus) as our Salvation, we become part of the family of God and become future citizen of the Kingdom of God. We become His children. Just as parents want their children to obey and submit to their authority, Yahweh also wants us to be obedient and submit to His authority. Yahweh is clear from the beginning that obedience is how we love Him. He not only wants our hearts to love Him, but also our actions. Love is an action, not just an emotion. If I say I “love” somebody, but never impart any action into that relationship, there is no love. How would you feel if your spouse said they loved you, but never took any action to show you that love? It’s the same with Yahweh.
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate Him, by destroying them. Deuteronomy 7:9
Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all His ways and to keep His commandments and to cling to Him and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul. Joshua 22:5
If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. John 14:15
Jesus answered 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. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My Words. And the Word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent Me. John 14:23-24
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. John 15:10
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. I John 3:18
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 1 John 5:2-3
And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 2 John 6
Additional verses TO STUDY: Deuteronomy 10:12, Deuteronomy 11:13, Joshua 23:11
The word Torah means “instructions” and includes ALL of the laws, commandments, rules and statutes that Yahweh gives to His people from Genesis to Deuteronomy and all the way to Revelation.
Obeying Yahweh’s Torah is how we know Him and abide in Him. It reveals our hearts to Him when we submit to His authority and honor Him with our obedience.
And then will I declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.” Matthew 7:23
In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is 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 14:20-21
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen Him or known Him. 1 John 3:4-6
Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. 1 John 3:24
Even Yeshua obeyed the Father so that the world would know that He loved the Father. (John 14:31) Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Yeshua did. (1 John 2:6) The last line in this passage said we “must walk as Yeshua did.” Do we really know how Yeshua walked? Yeshua was a Jew who lived a strict life according to Torah, He walked in obedience perfectly and taught others to do the same. The only commands He taught against were the man-made commands and traditions. John says that those who claim to follow the steps of the Messiah, but do not walk according to His commandments are liars. 1 John 2:4 states, “Whoever says ‘I know Him’ but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him.”
And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the Truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked. 1 John 2:3-7
But I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. John 14:31
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. John 15:10
So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” John 7:16
If I am not doing the works of My Father, then do not believe Me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me and I am in the Father. John 10:37-38
So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” John 8:28-29
Not only does our obedience show Him we love Him, but He shows steadfast love to those who obey Him.
For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love Me and keep My commandments. Deuteronomy 5:10
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, to a thousand generations, and repays to their face those who hate Him, by destroying them. Deuteronomy 7:9
And because you listen to these rules and keep and do them, the LORD your God will keep with you the covenant and the steadfast love that He swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to give you. You shall be blessed above all peoples. Deuteronomy 7:12
I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. Daniel 9:4
The Bible makes it clear that disobeying His instructions is sin (iniquity/transgression). 1 John 3:4 says that sin is lawlessness. You can have lawlessness without a law. What law? The only laws that matter. Lawlessness is disobedience to God’s laws and commandments (Torah). In 2 Peter 3:17, Peter warns us to “not be carried away with the error of lawless people.” Yeshua said that those who don’t do the will of His Father will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven and He will say “Depart from me you workers of lawlessness!” (Matthew 7:23) What is His Father’s will? The same that it has been from the beginning – for us to humble ourselves and obey His Voice.
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Matthew 7:21-23
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. I John 3:4
Israel has sinned; they have transgressed My covenant that I commanded them; Joshua 7:11
If anyone sins, doing any of the things that by the LORD’s commandments ought not to be done, though he did not know it, then realizes his guilt, he shall bear his iniquity. Leviticus 5:17
But if you sin unintentionally, and do not observe all these commandments that the LORD has spoken to Moses, all that the LORD has commanded you by Moses, from the day that the LORD gave commandment, and onward throughout your generations… Numbers 5:22-23
If anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the LORD’s commandments ought not to be done, and realizes his guilt, or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a female without blemish, for his sin which he has committed. Leviticus 4:27-28
Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers, was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? Isaiah 42:24
And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them (Paul’s letters) that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 2 Peter 3:15-17
Sin/lawlessness separates us from God. He hides His face from us when we sin and break His Torah.
But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. Isaiah 59:2
And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with Me that I hid My face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid My face from them. Ezekiel 39:23-24
When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you, even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause. Isaiah 1:15-17
Deuteronomy 8:5 says that “as a man disciplines his son, the Yahweh your God disciples you.” Like parents discipline their children when they disobey, Yahweh also disciplines us when we disobey. It may not seem so sometimes because it is not always immediately after our sin. Yahweh is merciful, but he is also a just God and has to do what He promises. Yahweh let His people wander in the wilderness for forty years to humble them and test them to see if the would keep His Torah, His instructions – but they did not (Deuteronomy 8:2). He gave His people, Israel, many chances to repent. He warned them for hundreds of years with numerous prophets, but they refused to listen. He finally gave them the punishment they deserved for their sinfulness when He sent them into captivity.
But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all His commandments and His statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Deuteronomy 28:15
Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 5:24
Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the LORD, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? Isaiah 42:24
Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to My words; and as for My law, they have rejected it. Jeremiah 6:1
I will discipline you in just measure, and I will by no means leave you unpunished. Because your guilt is great, because your sins are flagrant, I have done these things to you. Jeremiah 30:11, 15
Thus says the LORD God: This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her. And she has rebelled against My rules by doing wickedness more than the nations, and against My statutes more than the countries all around her; for they have rejected My rules and have not walked in My statutes. Therefore thus says the LORD God: Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are all around you, and have not walked in My statutes or obeyed My rules, and have not even acted according to the rules of the nations that are all around you, therefore thus says the LORD God: Behold, I, even I, am against you. And I will execute judgments in your midst in the sight of the nations. Ezekiel 5:5-8
And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with Me that I hid My face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid My face from them. Ezekiel 39:23-24
All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against Him. Daniel 9:11
Thus says the LORD: “For three transgressions of Judah, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because they have rejected the law of the LORD, and have not kept His statutes, but their lies have led them astray, those after which their fathers walked. So I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.” Amos 2:4
Additional verses TO STUDY: Jeremiah 44:23, Ezekiel 11:11-12, Ezekiel 20:11-13, Ezekiel 20:23-24, Ezekiel 22:26, Hosea 4:6; Hosea 8:1, Hosea 9:17
The wages (punishment) for sin (lawlessness) is eternal death (Romans 6:23). Sinning (breaking the law) caused the need for the Messiah to die. He died because we sinned. Yeshua died to receive the role of our high priest and to offer us a direct route for forgiveness of our sins. He didn’t take away sin itself – or we would be unable to sin and everybody who believed in Him as Messiah would be sin-free. Last I knew that certainly wasn’t the case.
Yeshua didn’t do away with the thing that defines sin either. He said that not an iota or dot, the littlest parts of a Hebrew letter, would pass away from the law until heaven and earth passed away. Heaven and earth is still here. Yahweh’s law is eternal because He doesn’t change. Why would He do away with His laws in the New Testament that He was so adamant about His people keeping in the Old Testament? The sin He hated then, He hates now. Yeshua, who was sinless, lived among us to bring us back to obedience – to show us how to be obedient to God’s Torah so that we could walk sinless too. Yeshua is the Word of God (Torah) made flesh. The Word that was in Him is the same Word that should be in us. The same word that was in Him, was the same Word that He practiced. Are you practicing the Word He practiced?
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of Heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of Heaven. Matthew 5:17-19
The Torah defines sin for us – and makes us aware of our sin. If you don’t have a clear set of instructions for living, then “each one does what is right in his own eyes.” Sounds like the world we are living in today, doesn’t it? That is because the majority of this world lives without the law of God. Without the law, we would not know what sin was or how to please our Heavenly Father. Thank goodness Yahweh gave us His instructions so that we would have a clear definition of what sin is and know what to DO and what NOT to do. When we confess and repent of our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Repentance is feeling sincere regret and remorse for one’s sin – to turn away from that sin and not do it anymore. When we turn from our sins (lawlessness) to righteousness (doing what is right in Yahweh’s eyes), Yeshua forgives us, cleanses us from that sin and brings us back into covenant with Him.
Many people think that if you obey the commandments that it mocks what Yeshua did for us on the cross – but it does just the opposite. NOT keeping His commandments mocks His death, burial and resurrection. He died because Israel broke, and we continue to break, His Torah. We mock Him when we continue to break His rules over and over without repentance. When we continue to live in sin (lawlessness), it makes His life and death meaningless. Just because Yeshua paid our debt for our sin and offers us forgiveness, does not mean we are free to sin and live however we want.
I am so grateful for the cleansing blood of Yeshua! Without the shedding of His blood, I would be condemned to eternal death. Not one of us is without sin. Not one of us can keep the Torah perfectly. But just because we can’t be perfect doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Because I love Him, I will continue to obey His commands the best that I can until He returns. Only then we will I be sinless.
Shalom!
(Shalom is a Hebrew word meaning peace, harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare and tranquility.)
Resources
Video Series: Love and Torah, MTOI, 52 parts and counting
Please note: Although I may not completely agree with the entire philosophy of my resources, the specific content shared has been reviewed and is found to be Biblically accurate.