WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE GOD

It is easy to often declare that we love God and when we say it we really believe it but the question is… do we actually, really love God? 

First things First, If you are going to love a person right, you need to understand what that means to them because most people have a very clear idea of what makes them feel loved. Turns out with God, it’s  no different.

So I suppose that makes the second question in a long list of questions, " what does it mean from God's point of view to love Him?"

“If you love me you will keep my commandments”.  (John 14: 15)

Pretty straight forward right? Yet a few verses later in the book of John and there it is again.

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, my Father will love him; and we will come to him and make our home in him” (John 14:23)

You kind of have to wonder about how seriously Jesus feels about something when He says it twice to the same set of people in the same conversation. There is something in Christian theology called the law of first mention which means the meaning of something the first time it was said should be used to understand subsequent scriptures referring to it. Today I’m proposing a new Law that doesn’t (and probably will never) exist in theology. It's called the the Law of Take-What-Jesus-Says-Super-Seriously-if-He-can be-bothered-to say-it-twice-less-than-10-verses-apart. Sure it may be the longest title of a Law but it's a perfectly vaild law all the same.

The extra thing about this verse is that these were not the only times Jesus said them or they were re-echoed in the New Testament. Jesus was very clear and emphatic when speaking to His disciples and to us in effect, that to obey Him is to Love Him.

Jesus actually takes things up a notch telling us that God loves Him because He has stayed in His law. (John 15: 10) What this tells us is that even the relationship and love between the Father and Son has an obedience clause in it and so does ours.

When we say we love God often times it goes a little like this "I love God and all but.. it's not that easy to...." "It's not as if I don't love God but....".  It's like an old friend of my sister's said, anything you say before ‘but’ does not count. This is not me being unduly harsh because we've all been there and every now and again we all like to walk down "But Avenue".

But (pun intended) Here’s the truth, when we make those declarations, what they really are more often than not, are excuses for behaviors we're not ready to quit or let go off.

It's really not that easy…… TRUE but we were never supposed to do any of this in our own strength. If we were supposed to do these things on our own then Jesus would not have had to die for us. We would have been capable of saving ourselves and rising to righteousness of our own accord but we can’t. So Jesus died so we would learn to lean on his strength and so that we would be justified by grace.

What this means is it's Ok to struggle with things, what is not ok, is to dwell in those struggles. The same grace that grants us pardon and forgiveness for sins is the same grace made available to us to conquer sin. If you believe that grace is strong enough to keep you from condemnation then know too that it is strong enough to keep you from falling in the first place. You just need to tap into it.

How do we tap into grace? We pray about every little thing. No such thing as petty when it comes to struggles. What God does when we yield ourselves in prayer to the Spirit of God and Grace a.k.a the Holy Spirit, is that He exchanges His strength, for our weaknesses. He does this to rescue us from falling into sin because He wants us to love him right.

Other times, it's not that we don't know this, it’s that we want God to compromise who He is (Ps: That will NEVER happen. He didn't do it for Jesus so best believe he won't do it for you). We want God to settle for our version of love and be ok with what we are willing to give but God does not settle and He will have all of us or none of us. It’s only fair

Now would be a very good point to use ourselves as case studies.  If your parents had spent all of your life telling you they just loved you to bits and to the moon and back. If they told you that you were soo very dear to them but didn't ever buy you a single thing. If they never paid for your tuition. Always treated your needs as suggestions, the words I love you would easily have become the ugliest word you know.

 I love you would have become a word loaded with emptiness and unfulfilled hopes because as much as we say it's the thought that counts, we often want proof that you mean what you say.

If a friend or significant other swears their loyalty and love to you but never supports you, never has your back, never puts you first. If they were ok with hurting you for a bit as long as they apologized and everything would be all good. If you had a room filled with their sorrys and they always wanted you to be ok with their bare minimum, which is really their bare minimum. Even if you believed in your heart that in their own way, they did love you, you would eventually surmise that it just isn't good enough.

In reality, that's not all that different than our relationships with God. God isn’t content with us just loving Him in words alone. God is very much about the doing bit because those are standards and the example He has set in his love for us. God above everything else desires obedience from us. He is a jealous God and the only way we can enjoy total and true relationship with God is by being yielded and completely submitted to God.

Just so no one is confused God's love for us is constant.  He loves us even when we don't love Him and He is faithful even when we are faithless and why because God cannot deny himself and the bible says of God that “God is Love”.

So While God’s love for us is never changing, it is not fair or good enough that we don't love Him back in the way that He desires. As far as God is concerned, even in His insane love for us, anything less than obedience to His word is not love, it is merely lip service.

So let's try this again, when was the last time you really did love God?