How do you know if you love God?  Here’s a problem: I find that people with conflicting definitions of “God” all say they love God.  This means that some of them love a fantasy that is not real.  So the first thing to sort out is what is God and how do we know God is real?  but once we’ve done that how do we love God?  We know that Jesus said, “If you love me you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).  This statement has its roots in Deuteronomy 10:12-13 and 11:1-2.  In chapter 10 we are told to fear God and keep His commandments.  And then 11:1 says, “therefore, love God and keep his commandments.”  And in 11:2 we are told to remember God’s discipline.
So the picture we are getting is that to love God we must keep His commandments (and therefore we must know His commandments).  But we are also told to fear God and keep His commandments.  For many today love and fear seem to be opposites.  But here they are united in that we know God said “the day you eat you will surely die,” and “the wages of sin is death.”  So we know that if we do not keep his commandments we will suffer the consequence of death.  Spiritual death.  We saw Adam and Eve fell into this immediately upon eating.  And the same will be true for us.
We now have a solution to the problem above.  We can know if we love God if we can show we seek God.  And if we seek God we can show God is real.  That is keeping the First Commandment.  We can thus quiz ourselves.  Do I love God?  Do I know God and keep His commandments?