~ A place to find answers to gnawing spiritual questions ~
Question: How exactly does one love God? What is the love of God? I've been asking God to manifest His presence and to give me a revelation of His love that I can grasp, and this morning I came across this scripture: John 14:21b "...And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."John 14:23,24 "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."
Is loving God merely an act of will? Is it a decision to be obedient? Doesn't a supernatural element come into it? I hear these wonderful testimonies from people of how they were in their prayer closets and all of a sudden rivers upon rivers of the love of the Lord flooded through them. They were never the same and they loved the Lord desperately and their lives reflected that. I came to realize a while ago that I didn't love God because I wasn't keeping His word. I can't make myself love Him but believe me I want to love Him. This is the crux of a victorious walk with the Lord, I believe. Jesus even said that the greatest commandment was to love Him with everything we possess and to love our neighbor as ourselves. He said that upon these two things hung all the law and the prophets. It can't just be by reading the word; even though I haven't read it thoroughly I know it can't just be this alone.
What do you suggest I do? I'm in a season of fasting and prayer over this issue. I really felt the Lord impress upon me that the source of all my problems was a lack of love for Him. I really want to be able to love the Lord with everything I have and to love everyone else as well. I'm tired of living the mediocre, meaningless, powerless, sin-ridden Christian life that I'm living now. I want a revolutionary change.
Answer: We can only love God because He first loved us.
God always meets us at the point of our need. You can pray, "Make me to know you, Jesus. Make me hungry and thirst for you. Make yourself real to me, Jesus." God loves you. That's a fact, just like light comes from the sun. The Bible declares the fact of God's love from Genesis to Revelation. Get into the Bible. Worship, read it. When you come to God or Jesus or Holy Spirit, pause and worship and thank God for his precious blood which washes you clean from all sin.
Give God's love away. When we receive God's mercy, which is love in action, God only requires one thing of us and that is to give the same mercy to others he sends our way, including the exceptions or the ones we don't like. The test of God's love is giving it away.
Stop thinking. Begin thanking the Lord for His wonderful Salvation. Psalm 107 is a wonderful example of learning to praise the Lord. Pray always for all people, floods of His fulfilling mercies meeting every need they have. If you do these three things you will find God's Love in wonderful, astounding ways.
I'll be praying for you that you discover the wonderful love of God because it is truly amazing.
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This page was last updated September 8, 2010.
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