The Believer’s Responsibility: Love God
I was worried.
We were expecting our second child any day. But the worry wasn’t centered around the delivery… my wife is a rock star! I could hardly believe her strength in action when our first daughter arrived! And the worry wasn’t centered around not knowing the gender of the baby. We would be thrilled with a boy or a girl.
My worry was about whether I could love our second child as much as our first.
You see, over the two and a half years since our first child was born, I had gotten to know our girl. She was bright, fun, and had a bit of sass to her when she got upset! Our favorite was when she didn’t like something we said. She would huff and say, “I’m going to my room!” She felt like she was punishing us by withdrawing her presence.
We chuckled and enjoyed our time in quiet while she was ‘showing us!’ by being in her room. But really, I had grown quite fond of her presence! In fact, the more I got to know her, the more I loved her! I loved her so much in fact that I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to love our second child anywhere near that much. What would I do? How would I hide the difference? How could I still be a good dad with such a deficit in me?
But July 7th arrived, and we headed to the hospital. The pregnancy had been so different from our first, that my wife was convinced this one must be a boy. But lo and behold, the doctor announced, “It’s a girl!” My wife was so surprised she said, “Can you check again?” There was no question; we had a second daughter. And she was immediately beautiful, and she was mine.
The strangest thing happened the moment she was born—the Lord multiplied the amount of love in my heart! I had only just met her, but she was my daughter and I wanted her in my arms.
One of our greatest responsibilities, as well as an opportunity for our greatest joy, is “to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind. This is the great and first commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38, paraphrased).
In Matthew 22, the religious leaders of Jesus’s day were trying to “entangle him in his words” (vs. 15b, ESV). They were not interested in truly getting to know Jesus. They were trying to trick him into making a mistake so they could condemn him.
In contrast, when someone meets Jesus for the first time and truly sees Him for who He is, they often respond to His love by falling in love with Him. And the more we get to know God, the more we love Him! He is never wrong, can never sin against us, and even in His loving discipline, He never over-reacts.
While we cannot consider all aspects of love in this short devotional, there are a few very important points we can consider.
God demonstrated and proved His love for us (Romans 5:8 and 1 John 4:9). His loving sacrifice provided true life for us through Christ! And He is perfectly faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). This includes faithfulness to His character trait of love (1 John 4:8). Therefore, we can love Him knowing that He first loved us (1 John 4:10).
Our love for God includes obedience, but not in the legalistic sense. As Philip Yancey put it, “God wants something more intimate than the closest relationship on earth, the lifetime bond between a man and a woman. What God wants is not a good performance, but my heart. I do “good works” for my wife not in order to earn credit but to express my love for her. Likewise, God wants me to serve “in the new way of the Spirit”: not out of compulsion but out of desire.” (What’s So Amazing About Grace, pp. 189-190)
But we must not make the mistake of thinking that loving God is easy or indicates weakness on the part of those who love God. As Dan Allender and Tremper Longman put it, “God desires intimacy, and relationship with God does not come without a struggle. He is aware of that and invites us to know Him, to wrestle with the deepest issues of our life with Him.” (Bold Love, p. 309)
Dear Saints, continue to get to know God for Who He really is. Wrestle with Him through your most difficult trials. And enjoy His company throughout your most delightful days. You’ll find that the more you get to know Him, the more you’ll love Him.
Just as I felt the love multiply in my heart the moment I saw my second daughter, our love for God can grow. As the lovers in the Song of Solomon said of each other, we can say of our loving heavenly Father, “My beloved is mine, and I am his.” (2:16a)
Neil T. Anderson is the founder of Freedom in Christ Ministries. He began the ministry in 1989 and continues to spread the message of freedom to this day.