Three times as Jesus speaks to the disciples about his going and the Holy Spirit’s coming, he repeats this phrase: Your love for me will be indicated by your obedience to me. Obviously, it was very important to Jesus that his disciples understood this.

It still is. In an age where love has become a very squishy concept, Jesus still wants those who claim to follow him to demonstrate their love not just in language, but in action. Now the fact that love calls for proof in no way diminishes the doctrine of unconditional love—love with no strings attacked. It simply clarifies what unconditional means. To love unconditionally means the love you have and express toward another is not dependent upon their worth or the work. Rather, that love emanates from the core of your being. That love is there—it is the subject; but a noun needs a verb as well as an object to tell the full story of what love is. And what love is cannot be told without showing what love does.

The Apostle Paul taught that in I Corinthians 13, the great love chapter, when he writes “love is…” But Paul defines “love is” by demonstrating what love does: It acts. It works. It affects. It produces an outcome.

Jesus says the outcome of love for him is obedience: The one who loves him will obey his commandments. If they accept his demands, they will prove it by obedience to those requirements, thus authenticating their love for him. They will do what he says. Jesus can’t be any clearer than that: love for God has conditions—it obeys.

Furthermore, the God who loves us unconditionally sets some conditions upon his love for us and our loving response to him; some “if…then’s”: I love you, and if you love me by doing what I says, then I will give you another Advocate (John 14:16); If you obey my commandments then my Father will love you and I will love you too and reveal myself to you (John 14:21); If you love me then my Father and I will come and make our home with you. (John 14:23).

Love doesn’t work to be love; it works because it is love. That is very clear when you look to the source of love, the Being who defines what love is by demonstrating what love does. God is love. His love is not the sloppy, vague, anything goes kind of love our world knows. It is not the ever-changing love that rises and falls with one’s current emotional state that far too many people today understand love to be. It is not the selfish kind of love that loves to the degree that love is requited. No—God’s love is an unconditional, sacrificial, proactive love that seeks out unworthy objects. It is a holy and righteous love; it is a tough love; it is an unchanging love. It is this love that is the essence of God’s being; it is energy of what God does. It is the outcome of where God has been and is. God is love—not just love the noun, but love the verb.

And when you have truly embraced God’s love, it then goes on display in you. It can’t help it. Like God, you love with no thought of love in return; you go out of your way to love; you love in response to hurtful and hateful actions; you suffer, but patiently love; when everyone else has given up, you stubbornly love anyway. When that kind of love in action is displayed in you, it is obvious that God’s unconditional love got to you.

And when it comes to your love for God, love is…love does. It obeys. It does what he says. Not to earn more of his love, but to express love in response to what you can never earn. That is the condition of true love: it loves unconditionally.

“When love and skill work together expect a masterpiece.” (John Rushkin)

Getting To Know Jesus: Express your love for God by loving someone else today—surprise them with love. Do it generously and in a way they cannot repay, perhaps even doing it anonymously so ensure they can’t. And love in a way that leaves a definite imprint that God has been there.