What does it mean to REALLY Love God, as He expects to be LOVED?

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Someone very close recently asked me what it means to really love God?

I gave my standard pat answer... and frankly it wasn’t a good enough. Not even close. The standard answer most of us probably give to that question doesn’t begin to explain its profound importance to the life of a Christian. Even the verses in the Bible that explain to us how we are to love God are harder to comprehend than most of us think they are. We read the words, we hear them recounted many times in sermons, but do we really understand the depth and implications of these profound words?

“YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.” Matthew 22:37

What does it mean to love God? Jesus said that loving God was the greatest command of all (Matt. 22:37,38). No doubt most people, who believe in God, will affirm that they love Him. Many people regularly express their love for God in worship services. While this is certainly good, is it enough?

Jesus warned about people who honored Him with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him (Matt. 15.8). Such people would speak of love, but they did not really have it. So, what is love? How do we know whether or not we genuinely love God?

1 John 3:17 says: "But whoever has this world's goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" In my relation to other human beings, if I am not willing to help them - if I don't do for them what they need to have me do - then I don't love them, no matter how much I may say that I do.

This is also true in our service to God. The next verse says: "My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth." Loving God is not just a matter of what we say, but of what we do. It is an everyday way of life.

1 John 5:3 says: "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments..." Do you love God? Your actions answer the question. No one really loves God unless he is diligently studying God's will and obeying it. Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments" -- John 14:15. And again, "...this is love, that we walk after his commandments" -- 2 John 6.

When you take the time to digest these God-given words, you begin to see just how desperately short many of us are in meeting these Godly expectations for loving Him, our brothers in Christ and our fellow man.

Many professing Christians have an emotionally based love for God. A love that is more admiration than a sacrificial love deeply centered in the heart. God wants more than lip-service from true believers. In order to accomplish God’s will in our lives, to experience the active engagement of the Holy Spirit working within us, we must learn the true meaning behind “agape” love and separate ourselves from worldly values, philosophies and aspirations.

It is easy to talk about what a great love we have for the Lord, while thinking of Him as a distant cosmic being who simply died for our sins, or as a disengaged benevolent friend who doesn't much care how we live.  Such a love is shallow, non-reciprocal and bears little or no personal responsibility. It’s a love based on our perceptions of God being the “giver”, while we the beneficiaries of His love are the “takers”.

This is one of the reasons why so many Christians see God as a divine being who loves and relentlessly pursues man as if He can’t live without us. Seeing and knowing God as He really is can be a difficult truth to handle. His love is balanced: He is a God who, though infinitely loving and forgiving, is also righteous, just and holy, and will not tolerate our sin. He is a God who is continuously unfolding and executing His will for humanity. He expects each one of us to fit into His will and fulfill many and varied roles within His purpose. He expects us never to turn aside to the right or to the left... to do our own thing. He expects us to relentlessly pursue Him, to follow Him, to be absorbed in Him and to live our lives in this world consumed by His will and purpose. He rightly expects us to love Him in such a way that we are empowered to live in this world but be no part of it. No small challenge for anyone who calls themselves a Christian.

Loving God means making a commitment to place Him above our own wants and desires. When you make a decision to bind yourself to God by the blood of Jesus Christ, you are saying to God... “I love you, and want to devote my life to you... teach me to love you deeply and my fellow man unconditionally...”. Only with total submission and commitment can we ever expect to be empowered to fulfill His will on earth, growing in Christlikeness, becoming one with Him. That is loving God.

Christians who believe they are working hard for the Lord’s Kingdom must continuously monitor what flows from their hearts. The questions we must ask ourselves can be overwhelming and not easily considered. For example... do we love the Lord wholeheartedly, or do we save room in our hearts for our own desires, our own pleasures, and the passing things of this world?Do we love Him with all our strength, devoting every minute of the day and every ounce of our strength to doing His will here on earth, or  do we save strength for accomplishing our own self-will and our own selfish ambitions? 

Do we love the Lord with all the thoughts of our minds?  Our minds control our actions, and we cannot love the Lord with all our strength when we do not love Him with all our mind.  We also cannot love Him with all the mind when our mind is thinking about our own interests, or when it’s running wild and thinking distracting thoughts.  If we love the Lord with all our minds, we will be constantly "casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God (including all that we let our minds exalt or dwell on when we should be seeking to know God's present will) and taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."  (2 Corinthians 10:5)

None of us can immediately become perfect at loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and mind, and strength. It may take us a lifetime to fully measure up to God’s expectations.   But unless we are constantly striving to have this kind of consistently whole hearted, active love for God, then we prove ourselves liars and hypocrites when we say that we love Him.  To be unable to “hit the goal” is one thing, but not to try hard is quite another... especially in God’s eyes.

If we love the Lord with all our strength, we will delight in continually doing His will, and we will eagerly devote all our time and strength to being His hands and His feet here on earth.  But in order to love God, and to serve Him with all our strength, we must also love His will.   

Most Christians today may not think in these terms... that it is possible to love God's will.  It is quite possible, and in fact quite easy.  We cannot separate the “will of God” from the “character and personality” of God. God is LOVE... and all that He does is centered in that supreme attribute. That’s why He can say to us... “if you love me, then you will keep my commandments.” However... it is impossible for us to love God's will and the “things of this world” simultaneously. Both seek to be our masters and God and the things of this world ruled by Satan, are on a collision course that leads to eternal destruction. Don’t forget... God wins!

We must choose - will we love and serve God or will we continue to love the world and our own self-centeredness?  To love God with all our hearts is to love every aspect of His character and to wholeheartedly and actively embrace all that He is and all that He stands for.   If our answer is yes, then we will delight in letting Him use us as much as possible to do the deeds of that love, even if it costs us hardship. 

Do we love God's justice and His holiness? If so, then we will be in full agreement with His abhorrence of all sin and selfishness. We will accept in the light of His love and grace the fact that He must judge every person... including us... according to our deeds... how we lived our lives in His grace.  Do we love the fact that God is merciful and compassionate towards all people? If so, then we will delight in showing others His mercy and compassion, by being continually merciful and compassionate towards the righteous and sinners alike... the deserving and the undeserving... just as He is.

God is truth.  If we love God with a whole heart, we will love the truth even when it convicts or condemns us.  We will constantly ask Him to reveal the ways in which we are deceiving ourselves, and we will constantly seek the whole truth and will be totally open to it whether it appeals to us or not.
  
To love the Lord with all our soul is to love Him, and all that He is, from the very core of our being, and to be so devoted to Him that all our desires, all our affections, all our earthly ties, and even our love for our own life, are nothing in comparison to our love for Him.  It is to be so devoted to Him that we would sooner lose all we hold dear... comfort, health, reputation, friendships, and even our very lives... than refrain from doing any part of His will. 

This is what it means to love God. This is how we demonstrate genuine love toward God and our neighbor so that, ultimately, the world might be saved.