It's not about a deterrent

More than once, I've seen someone basically ask this: "If there's no Hell, why would you bother? What would make you want to follow God's rules?"

Of course, the easy answer is: I still believe in Heaven. I believe the choices are between Heaven and nothingness, and I find Heaven more comforting than nothingness. That's a good reason right there, but it's the easy answer, and it's not, really, the important bit.

I imagine everyone reading this has someone they love—more than one someone, one presumes, since I don't mean just romantic love here. Someone who you care about a great deal, whose opinion is important to you.

I imagine that everyone reading this has, at some point, wondered how one of those people could possibly love you back. You may've gotten to that point from a different place and for different reasons than I have, but I'm sure it's fairly universal to wonder "Why does this person love me? How can they keep loving me the way I am? What if they stop loving me?"

I also would bet you've at least thought about being willing to change something about yourself to ensure that person keeps loving you. Maybe you didn't do it, but you probably find the idea familiar.

There's also a pretty good chance that at least once in your life, you've decided to to choose to not do something because it would hurt someone you love and who you know loves you.

And why? Not because that person threatened to do something bad to you. Not because you feared they would. (That's probably happened, too, but it's not the point of this wondering.) Because the idea of losing their regard, their love, and their presence in your life was sufficiently worrisome to you that you were willing to at least consider changing something, whether small or large, to ensure that didn't happen.

Now if you believe, as I do, that God loves you, wouldn't you think it would make sense to apply that to Him?