What do you love? There are many responses to this question. Some responses can be self-centered, such as my choices, my time, my money, my job… or it can others-centered, for instance family, friends, the less-fortunate. Each of these reactions are legitimate yet, prove eternally inadequate for in its broken condition, mankind can easily love the wrong things and love in the wrong way. All one does and all that one loves will come to nothing except ones love for God. Take note of this, that God loves His creation and He is calling each member to love Him. Ones choice to love Him or not will be the only thing which lives eternal.
If in our
brokenness, our capacity to love is compromised, then the question arises, how do
we correctly love God? The simple yet
profound answer is with an undivided heart.
That is to say, loving God means being devoted with all we are to all He
is. This is why scripture beckons all to,
“… love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with
all your mind and with all your strength. (Mark 12:30)” This takes loving God
out of the four-walls of the church. It
means loving God is such a priority that all of one’s life expresses it. It is not a one-time act that can be checked
off of a list but an everyday life choice for loving God is commitment. This is a deep, rock-hard commitment, something
one sticks with even when he or she does not feel like it. Loving God unconditionally is
foundational. It is what it means to be
a Christian. When we choose to become followers of Jesus, we’re making a
commitment to love God with everything! Everything
we have and everything we are is all committed to loving God. So, loving God is
a lifestyle because it impacts everything we say, think, and do. It goes much
deeper than singing songs at church or attending a weekend service.
A call for an all-consuming
love is not easy but it is within
reach. Just as the answer to how do you
eat an elephant is, one bite at a time. Loving
God with everything which is overwhelming is attainable if one asks, what is
the next thing I can give to God? Let
the love you have for God be evident twenty-four, seven, three-hundred
sixty-five.