“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he.” Proverbs 29:18.

The man who attempts to keep the commandments of God from a sense of obligation merely –because he is required to do so– will never enter into the joy of obedience. He does not obey. When the requirements of God are accounted a burden because they cut across human inclination, we may know that the life is not a Christian life. True obedience is the outworking of a principle within. It springs from the love of righteousness, the love of the law of God. The essence of all righteousness is loyalty to our Redeemer. This will lead us to do right because it is right – because right doing is pleasing to God. –Christ’s Object Lessons, p. 97.

To those who love God it will be the highest delight to keep His commandments and to do those things that are pleasing in His sight….

Says the psalmist, “The law of the Lord is perfect.” How wonderful in its simplicity, its comprehensiveness and perfection, is the law of Jehovah! It is so brief that we can easily commit every precept to memory, and yet so far-reaching as to express the whole will of God and to take cognizance, not only of the outward actions, but of the thoughts and intents, the desires and emotions, of the heart. Human laws cannot do this, They can deal with the outward actions only…. The law of God takes note of the jealousy, envy, hatred, malignity, revenge, lust, and ambition that surge through the soul, but have not found expression in the outward action; … and these sinful emotions will be brought into account in the day when “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” –My Life Today, p. 163.