In the last comic, I spoke about how the Bible explains how we are to love God and love others. There is a ditch we shouldn't fall into with that though: doing things in a checklist, or out of obligation.

Paul speaks a lot about this in his letters. Any time he is speaking about "the letter of the law", this is what he is referencing. God doesn't want us to do His commands as a "get out of hell free card", or "because we HAVE to, to be on His good side". He wants us to do them because we WANT to do them. We WANT to be closer to Him. He wants our hearts.

If we are just doing things out of obligation, there is no heart in it. It has no meaning. Think about you and your parents. Maybe one of the things they asked you to do was to take out the trash. Did you keep an eye on the trash to make sure that it was always taken out when it needed to be? You never complained if you missed an opportunity and if told it needed to be taken out, were quick to do it?

Or did you complain about how you hate having to take out the trash? You always waited until someone told you it needed to be taken out? And when you did take it out, you always had a bad attitude about it?

In both of these instances, you took the trash out, but which is loving? The same applies to God.

If you haven't before, read Isaiah 58. It is God talking about His people and how they think they are doing the things God wants them to do, but their heart isn't in it.

https://thestraightandnarrow.cfw.me/comics/678

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