love… again
Last week I talked about God’s love for us. How deep and how wide it goes. This week I wanted to talk about our love for God. Our greatest commandment is to love God. What does love look like? Love looks like giving your all or being willing to, to those you love. Being willing to make sacrifices for them. The ultimate example of love is God– dying on the cross for sins he didn’t commit and sins he’d never commit.
That gives me chills. To think that God, before I was even thought of by my parents, loved me so much that He would die on the cross for MY sins. Love for God looks like obedience, faith, trust, and patience. Our love for God motivates our every decision, thought, and belief. In Mark 12:29-31 it says,
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
This is our greatest commandment given to us by God. To love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. With every fiber of our being. The Bible emphasizes loving God as a command, which serves as the driving force (strength) for how we begin to feel about God (heart) which influences what we think about him (mind) and then encourages our desires for him (soul).
Loving God is so important to our walk with Him. Without our willingness to love God completely, we can’t offer that love to others. We are only able to receive love from God to the extent that we allow ourselves to receive love from God. We don’t have to love God in order for Him to love us back, He loves us no matter what. God loves us unconditionally. However, we don’t always recognize or receive that love until we choose to open our hearts and eyes and love God ourselves.
Choosing to love God with our whole hearts is the best decision we could ever make. It’s not always easy, and there are times when it feels impossible. But it’s not impossible. And when we feel as though we can’t love God, He continues to love us unconditionally– without conditions– no matter what.
God gave us free will, He gave us the choice to choose to love him and follow him or not. I can tell you right now, choose love. Choose God’s love. It’s not fleeting. It’s unchanging. It’s the best decision you could ever make.
If you’d like to know more about what that might look like, message me. Coffee on me :)
