How do you know if you REALLY love God?

Ron lives in a midwestern community and works in a natural gas processing plant. Part of his job is to keep track of how the machinery is working. He listens for anything that sounds out of the ordinary like bearings that may be too hot or working parts that may be failing. But one of his most important duties is to check the hundreds of gauges that measure hot water pressure, oil levels, and gas compression.

These gauges are terribly important to the operation of the entire plant. Huge boilers heat up the steam that drives the processing of the gas and much of the other machinery in the plant. The thick metal sides of the boilers prevent anyone from seeing how much water and steam are building up inside. That is why the boilers have gauges. If a boiler’s pressure gets out of line, it has an automatic shut-off valve that shuts down the problematic equipment before the boiler can explode. The gauge also signals a lack of pressure in the boiler. If the pressure is too low, the plant machinery will not have enough steam power to function and the gas will not be processed.

That is why Ron and other gas-plant employees continually check and adjust the hundreds of gauges to keep the plant under control. They are making sure that the processes going on inside the boilers and other pressurized machinery are at the exact level needed for optimum performance.

The danger of working with an unregulated boiler cannot be overestimated. Without these safety measures, the natural-gas-fueled boilers would explode. Many years ago before modern gauges helped perfect the boiler’s safety, fiery explosions killed workers or burned them horribly. Even today, if the gauges malfunction and the safety valves do not work as they should, workers may be killed or maimed.

I am sure you have seen pictures of old-time boilers. Running up beside the boiler is a tiny glass tube that serves as the gauge. As the water stands in the little tube, so it stands in the great boiler. When the tube is half full, the boiler is half full; if empty, so is the boiler.

This is how the Ten Commandments function in our lives. How do you know you love God? You believe you love Him, but you want to know. Look at the gauge. Your obedience to God’s holy commandments is the measure of your love for God.⁶

That is also how the Ten Commandments give us happiness. When we observe them in the power of God’s Spirit, they liberate us to do what is essential to please God. They tie us into the love of God by helping us to get in step with what He wants for our lives and how He wants to protect us from wrongdoing and its consequences. They unlock the blessing God has in store for us.

As I study and reflect on the Ten Commandments, I gauge my spiritual life as God sees it. I can tell whether I am observing rules and regulations not mandated by God, which add unbearable pressure to my life and lead me into bondage to man-made rules. On the other hand, by looking at my spiritual gauge, I can also see if I am failing to follow God’s Spirit in obedience so that my spiritual life has no supernatural drive and direction. These ten brief statements, then, can help me keep my life in the center of God’s will.

By Bill Bright

©2025 Copyright Bright Media Foundation

⁶ Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, Michael P. Green (ed.), (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1990), Illus. #800.