Psalm 40:10 I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

Rule number 4 should come first but for some reason it just does not work out that way.

Proverbs 22:11 He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.

Perhaps, and I admit I am not sure, but what some might be looking for was a friend.

Malachi 1:2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”

If we have never seen love, how would we recognize it when it comes?

John 5:42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

How does the love of God abide in me?

John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

Some of us don’t like to be told what to do.

1 John 4:16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Faith, belief, and seeking is the order that leads to love and obedience. According to His Word.

Romans 8:1-4 English Standard Version

Life in the Spirit

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Matthew 5:17 “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.”

What does it mean to “be in Christ”?

Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Think of it this way, if you can. Having placed our faith in Christ, we live a life of faith according to His Word so that when the Father looks at us, all He sees is His Son, our acceptable substitute.

Romans 3:25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.