Personal Revival: Love God

Here in the west, we tend to think of love in terms of an emotion; you know those gooey, leg wobbly feelings you get when you are “in love”.

Also, we in the western hemisphere, tend to look down at the concept of arranged marriages. Now, I’m not, for one minute advocating that these marriages are the best way. I’m just saying that we might have inadvertently thrown out quite a good principal and that is that love doesn’t start off as a feeling. With these arranged marriages the idea is that the feelings will come later as you get to know each other and by discovering what each other like. In a nutshell, it’s actions first then feelings. Whereas we tend to rely on feelings first then the actions (so to speak will be a result of those feelings). Do you see? They are opposite ways of trying to get to the same end result.

Another problem we have, is with the English language. You see we say: “I love my wife”, but also “I love my dog” or “I love my football”. The word love can have such a wide variety of meanings. Not so, in the Greek language, which is the main language that the New Testament was written in. Here are just a few examples. In Greek, unconditional love, God’s kind of love towards us is Agape. Brotherly love, or friendship kind of love is Philia. Sexual love is Eros.

For the sake of this brief study on how we should love God, we need to be aware that love is a verb; love is demonstrated by what we do and not by what we say, think or feel. It would be easy for anyone to say: “well, I love God”. Do you know what God would say back at us: “Okay, prove it! Show me!”

This is what Jesus says on the matter:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” – John 14:15

“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” – John 14:21

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” – John 14:23

“If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” – John 15:10

Here’s what John says in his epistles:

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 1 john 5:3

And this is love; that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it. 2 John 1:6

Clearly, we see that we show that we love God by obeying His commandments:

Click here to see some of His commandments:

Also, some might be thinking, well we are also told to love God with all our minds too! Yes, that’s true and sometimes I’ve heard people say that it’s not a sin to just think something bad; it’s if you put legs to those thoughts that leads to the need for repentance. Not so, what we think does really matter.

Remember what caused the great flood in Noah’s time? Here’s what we read:

The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Genesis 6:5

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. Matthew 15:9

Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, he gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not be done. Romans 1:28

Here’s how to keep a check to see if we are being obedient children of God and walking out daily, this commandment to love God with all our heart, soul and mind:

The fruit of the Spirit is: