Love The LORD Your God

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! ⁵ You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

The world is filled with things people love.  As God's adopted children, Christians know their love for God ought to overshadow all other loves, making them even as hate in comparison (Luke 14:26).  But we don't always do what we should, do we?  Our affections should be set on things above, not on things of this earth.  This is a battle we often acknowledge with only half our heart, so filled are we with other loves.

"I love God more than anything," we protest.  Those words, at times, may be true.  But we must admit we are very good at justifying ourselves and quantifying love according to our hearts - which are deceitful beyond compare!  Indeed, love is difficult to discern because it is expressed in many ways:  thoughts, words, actions, emotions, and feelings.  So let me make it easy for you in the way God recently has made it easy for me.  One of the prime aspects of God's love towards us is His fervent desire to be with us in fellowship and communion.  Another aspect is how things we love will fill our minds.  In fact, David wrote in Psalm 139:17-18 concerning God's thoughts toward people, "How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! ¹⁸ If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You."

Let's take into account just these two criteria:  1) we want to be with what or who we love, and 2) we think about what or who we love.  As you go through your days, what or who do you want to be with?  What or who fills your thoughts?  Whether you have amorous feelings towards the things that occupy your time or your mind, it does not matter.  Simply put, you love them.  As long as we love things that are not God, it will rob us of affection, thoughts, and love we should have towards God.  God's love is unlimited, but we humans have limits.  Love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit we bear when we are walking according to God's will.  If our hearts and minds are set on things of this world - even on things, ideas, or relationships that in their right place can be very good - we are not walking in God's will, and therefore cannot love as we should.

God wants you to freely give up these other loves so you might love Him more perfectly.  He is worthy of that sacrifice.  Let's say for example your thoughts have been occupied on a television program.  You would not admit to "loving" that program, but you must admit you like it.  Truth be told, it does take up a fair amount of your thoughts during the day.  You might be careful to watch the program every time it airs, and if you cannot watch it live you record it to watch later.  It is disappointing to miss it.  Perhaps this is a shocking revelation you cannot accept:  you actually love that program.  If you think otherwise, the Holy Spirit can reveal even this to you.  Loving things of this world is as easy as breathing, and we do it without even recognising it.  If our love of which God is worthy has been let loose like streams of waters in the streets, we must return to the spring of Living Water.  All other loves must be culled so our love of God can be again cultivated.

So feeling guilty, you decide you should stop following the program, and are a bit bitter over it.  When we have walked with Jesus for any period of time, we have all done this sort of thing - and admittedly, felt pretty awful at times.  We felt like we are having to give up the one part of our life that made us very happy.  And that is why we might waffle back and forth on the issue for years.  But hear me:  anything we lay aside for the purpose of drawing nearer to God and loving Him more, we will have only gain.  We won't have lost anything!  If God replaces that thing we loved, our love and appreciation of Him will grow exponentially.  Oh, the things He wants to tell you!  What time of sweetness He wants to spend with you!  God is greater than all found in this world!  He is the One that thing or activity has become a cheap substitute for that is working to destroy the love we have left over for Him!  Christianity is not a life of restrictions but one of abundance and freedom.  As long as you hold onto other loves, you cannot know God's love as you should, and therefore cannot express His love to others either.

Let us heed God's command to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength.  We are no longer our own, but redeemed children of our Heavenly Father who loved us so much He sent His only begotten Son.  Through the Holy Spirit God has shed abroad His love in our hearts.  Romans 5:1-8 tells us this revelation of Divine Love and His benefits towards those who are born again:  "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; ⁴ and perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. ⁶ For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Do you have any other love in your life that has done so much for you?  I think not.