Grateful response

A priest on "Proclaiming The Good News":

It is a paradox, but one easily verified, that preaching morality will never motivate people to be good. It will discourage them. It will inevitably bore them. It may even drive them to despair, because of the suggestion, implied if not stated, that if they are not good God will not love and bless them. But the proclamation of the gospel, the good news of what God has done, is doing, and will continue to do for hearers and preacher alike, will motivate people to love God and neighbor as nothing else can. ....

The preacher who presents the moral law as the standard we must meet before God will love and bless us betrays the gospel. God’s law is a description of our grateful response to the unmerited and unconditional love which the Lord showers upon us—not because we are good enough, but because he is so good that he wants to share his love with us, despite our unworthiness. There is a place for exhortation in the pulpit. But it belongs at the end, when the overwhelming message of God’s unmerited love and goodness has prepared the hearers’ hearts and minds to respond to his love through grateful obedience and worshipful self-sacrifice. [more]

Sometimes a rebuke is needed and obedience is important. But the motive is more important: obedience is a response to His love, not a way of earning it.

We love because he first loved us. .... And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19, 21, ESV)

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15, ESV)

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