AC 10578 - What Is It to Love the Lord?

AC 10578 [3]

. . . it shall be briefly told here what love to the Lord is,
or what it is to love the Lord.
He who believes that he loves the Lord,
and does not live according to His commandments,
is very much mistaken,
for to live according to the Lord’s commandments
is to love Him.
These commandments
are truths which are from the Lord,
thus in which the Lord is;
and therefore insofar as they are loved,
that is, insofar as people live according to them from love,
so far the Lord is loved.
The reason is that the Lord loves a person,
and from love wills that he may be happy forever,
and a person cannot become happy
except by a life according to His commandments,
because by means of these
a person is regenerated and becomes spiritual,
and in this way can be raised into heaven.
But to love the Lord
without a life according to His commandments
is not to love Him,
for then there is not anything with the person
into which the Lord may flow and raise him to Himself;
because he is like an empty vessel;
there being nothing of life in his faith,
and nothing of life in his love.