Loving God

The first and most important commandment is to love God (Mark 12:30). This is the most important responsibility we have as Christians. 

We love God because he first loved us (1 John 4:19). God’s love is poured into our hearts through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). The Holy Spirit will enable us to love God, because love is the primary fruit of the Holy Spirit. God’s love flows into us by the Holy Spirit, and that love flows through us back to God. We love God with the love that we have received from God. 

Since true love originates in God and is poured into our hearts from God, our love for God is to have the same nature and quality as God’s love for us.

Unconditional

Our love for God is to be like his love for us: unconditional. God doesn’t put conditions on his love for us, and we shouldn’t put conditions on our love for God. God’s love does not fluctuate based on our behavior, and our love for God should not fluctuate based on what God does or doesn’t do. We don’t love God more when he does what we want and love him less when our lives don’t go the way we want. We should love God the same regardless of what he does.

Not Based on Feelings

Our love for God is not based on feelings. We don’t love God when we feel like it and don’t love him when we don’t. Love that is based on feelings varies wildly – it goes up and down based on moods. Feelings come and go. When we are disappointed, our love wanes, and when we are happy, our love is strong. This is not a good foundation for a healthy relationship. Love that is based on feelings is love that is based on ourselves, and this love is limited because it is not based on God’s power. 

Showing God We Love Him

God is the most important person in our lives, and our relationship with him is the most important relationship we have. It’s important for us to show God that we love him. We show our love to God differently than he shows his love to us because he is our authority. He is our Lord. He is over us. 

This difference in relationship is reflected in the different ways we show our love to God. Whereas God shows his love to us in that he provides for us, protects us, died for us, answers our prayers, gives us gifts, empowers us with his Holy Spirit, speaks to us, etc; we show our love to God in different ways.

Obey Him

One of the most important ways we show love to God is by obeying him. God doesn’t obey us, we obey him. We are not his Lord, he is our Lord. We’re not telling him what to do, he tells us what to do.

Jesus said if you love me, keep my commandments (John 14:15, 23). The New Testament defines the love of God as keeping his commandments. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments (1 John 5:3). If we love God, we’ll obey him. If we don’t love him, we won’t obey him. 

Satan wants us to disobey God. If we disobey God, we are obeying Satan. Serving Satan is spiritual adultery. Committing spiritual adultery shows that we don’t love God.

Jesus asks why people call him “Lord” and not do the things that he says (Luke 6:46). Those who call Jesus “Lord” but disobey his words do not love him. Jesus does not know them, and they will go into hell (Matthew 7:21-24). Persistent disobedience is a sign that a person has not been truly saved. Disobedience is a sign of hatred, not love. 

Jesus cannot be separated from the word of God. Jesus and his words are one. Jesus is the word of God made flesh. If we despise the word of God by not obeying it, this is tantamount to despising Jesus. But if we love and obey God’s words, this shows that we love and obey Jesus.

Hear Him

If you love someone, you’ll want to hear what they have to say. If you don’t love him, you’ll avoid him and not want to hear from him.

If we love God, we’ll want to hear what he has to say. If God tells us he wants us to change things, we will change them. We won’t run away from him, afraid to hear from him lest he tell us something we don’t like. 

God speaks to us through the Bible. If we love God, we’ll spend time reading his word. If we don’t love him, we’ll disregard the Bible. 

God speaks to us in prayer. When we love God we’ll spend time in prayer. 

God speaks to us through other believers. If we love God, we’ll love his church, and we’ll spend time in fellowship with other Christians so God can speak to us through them. But if we don’t love God, we will not want to spend time in fellowship. 

Trust Him

If you love someone, you’ll trust him. You will rely on him. Sometimes God asks us to trust him in something that is hard. If we love him, we’ll trust him; if we don’t love him, we won’t. 

A trust fall is when someone falls backwards into someone’s arms. It is easy to trust fall into the arms of a person you love. Because you love that person you trust that they will catch you and not let you hit the floor. If you don’t love that person, it is harder to fall backwards into their arms.

God sometimes asks us to do a trust fall into his arms. He tells us to do something, and we don’t know how it will work out. But we do it anyway, blindly trusting him to take care of us. When we obey God radically like this, it shows we love God. And whenever we do this, we will be blessed beyond measure.

Respect/Fear Him

When we love God, we will respect him. This respect will be so great that it can almost be called fear. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is not a fear that causes us to run away, but it is the fear that causes us to be in awe of God and to want to run to him for safety. 

If we don’t respect a person, we may despise that person. When we despise someone, it shows we don’t love that person. The more we respect God, the more we will love him.

Worship Him

When we love God, we will worship him. To worship means to bow down in extreme submission. Worshiping God involves singing and praising him, but it is more than that. It means submitting to him in radical ways. When we love God, we will worship him on his terms not on our terms. People have made up many different ways of worshiping God over the years, and many of these ways are not according to God’s word. Shockingly, many of these worship styles have come from Satanic religions. Worshiping God using Satanic means is a sign that people hate God, not that they love him. While this is often done in ignorance, God is calling his people to throw out these evil things. We reject the traditions of men and just do what God says. When we worship God on his terms, not on our terms, it shows him that we love him.

Thank Him

When we love someone, we will thank them and show them gratitude. We will not take them for granted. God showers his love upon us in many ways, and we should thank him for it. When we love God, we will be thankful for these many ways that he shows his love to us. We will not take his gifts for granted. Every good thing in our lives has come from God (James 1:17). When we thank God, we acknowledge that he is the source of these good gifts, and we don’t attribute the source of these good things to ourselves. 

Love Other Christians

People are made in the image of God. God loves the entire world, for everyone is made in his image. For this reason, we should love everyone. Furthermore, we should to show special love to other Christians. It is impossible to love God and not love our brothers and sisters in Christ (1 John 4:21). If we love other believers, then it proves that we love God, and God’s love is perfected in us (1 John 4:12).

We are the body of Christ, and we are members of Jesus’ flesh and bones. We are a part of him. This is why Jesus said that when Christians hurt, he hurts. When they are hungry, he is hungry. When Christians are naked, he is naked. When we minister to needy members in the body of Christ, we are actually ministering to Jesus (Matthew 25:35-40).

Loving God is one of the most basic and fundamental parts of Christianity. We can show love to God in many different ways. God showers his love upon us in many ways, and we can show our love to God in many different ways. The ways we show our love to God will be different than the ways he shows his love to us, because he is our Lord and we are his children. Let us reflect some of his great love back to him, in the ways that are mentioned here.