Daily Devotion
Loving God
By: Marissa Wolf
“I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.”
Psalm 17:11
We all talk about how much God loves us, but often forget to talk about how much we love God. Do we truly, genuinely, and wholly love God? We love God because He first loved us. (See: 1 John 4:19). Loving God looks like when we have His commandments and continually keep them. Now keeping His commandments doesn’t mean setting them aside out of sight out of mind and only using them for our selfish benefits, but it is rather an act of service and selflessness that is heartily done unto the Lord. There are many who say they love God, but fail to keep His commandments. Everyone has done this, we’ve all fallen short of loving God as we’re all hypocrites and sinners in need of a Savior. (See: Romans 3:23). There is none righteous or perfect on this side of Heaven, only God is perfect. (See: Romans 3:10). It is written in John 14:21 “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me:” so when we do not keep them we aren’t loving God.
One of His commandments that we are called to keep is to love one another as Christ loves us. This kind of love that Christ is calling us to love others with is not selfish, it is not fickle, it is everlasting and unconditional, and a love that we can only get from God. (See: Jeremiah 31:3). This kind of love in the Greek is called agape, which basically means a selfless and pure love that truly puts others first. We are called to love one another with the agape love of Christ. This agape love isn’t based on “feelings” or “our present mood” or whether or not we don’t even really care for one another. We are still called to love one another with agape despite all of these earthly things. Unfortunately, all too often we end up tolerating one another more so than loving one another. Sometimes we hate one another, and other times we only “love” one another when it’s beneficial for us (done out of selfish gain), or we only show love to those we are partial to. None of these things are loving one another with God’s agape love. Instead this is fake love, not God’s agape love. In fact, it is written in 1 John 4:20:
“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
We are going against God when we say we love Him and continually hate our brother. How can we love God, but not keep this commandment that the Lord calls us to keep? When we say that we know God, but do not keep His commandments, we are liars and the truth isn’t in us. (See: 1 John 2:4-6). Greater love has no one than this, than when one lay down one’s for their friends. (See: John 15:12-14). Christ did the same for us when He laid down His life for us on the cross. (See: John 3:16-17). This is the same kind of agape love that He loves us with and that we can love Him and others with!
God keeps covenant and mercy with them that love Him and keep His commandments. (See: Deuteronomy 7:9). Obeying His commandments is how we can love God. Even when the flesh creeps in and the devil likes to make an appearance, we can choose to say no and deny the flesh and the devil! (See: 1 Corinthians 10:13, Matthew 16:24, and Luke 9:23). The devil will make it very hard for us to choose to genuinely love God with our whole heart. When one part of our heart starts to take precedence and loves something else over loving God, this is where things get dangerous and the devil can get a foothold of us and wants us to continue down his wicked path (also known as the wide path of destruction). (See: Leviticus 26:1, Exodus 20:3-5, and Matthew 7:13-114). We are called to not follow our heart, but to follow Christ! (See: Jeremiah 17:9-10, Proverbs 28:26, and Proverbs 4:23). Jesus Himself in Revelation 22:17 said “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” We are so blessed to be called a “whosoever” as “whosoever” includes every single individual of the past to of the time to come. We all have the choice to call upon the name of the Lord and for Him to come and save us and continually believe in our hearts that He is Lord. (See: Romans 10:13 and Romans 10:8-9). He already paved the road for us through His death on the cross thousands of years ago, we just have to accept His gift of salvation! (See: Psalm 119:174 and Ephesians 2:8-9). We have to die to our flesh (as we can’t serve two masters), become crucified with Christ, and be born again so we can walk in the Spirit. (See: Galatians 2:20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, and Galatians 5:16-26). We must keep continually denying the flesh so we can choose to serve Christ! If we don’t deny the flesh we are fulfilling the lusts of the flesh which means that we aren’t walking in the Spirit and serving Christ, but rather serving ourselves and through that serving Satan.
We are called to keep His words. (See: John 14:23). We can do that when we hide God’s word in our hearts and meditate on it day and night. (See: Psalm 119:11 and Psalm 1:2). We can’t love God and serve the devil or our flesh at the same time. As when one tries to serve two masters they will either hate the one and love the other or else He will hold to the one and despise the other. (See: Matthew 6:24). It is also important to note that when we are keeping God’s commandments that we can’t just pick and choose which commandments that we want to keep and which ones we can ditch. We also can’t twist them to fit our “desires” for our way either. We’re not supposed to do things our way, but God’s ways only. If we ever find ourselves doing such things then we must cast them to the Lord, repent of them, and seek forgiveness. (See: 1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22 and Acts 3:19). We are called to keep them all and do them for His glory, not only keep them when it’s beneficial for us and where we can get the glory when we do. (See: Colossians 3:23-24 and 2 Corinthians 10:17). For example, we can’t choose when to love one person when it’s beneficial for us, and hate another as they don’t have any beneficial use for us. This is not Christlike. For God shows no partiality, therefore we should also show no partiality. (See: James 2:1-10 and Romans 2:11-12).
Most importantly, we are to love the Lord our God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. This means that we can’t give part of our heart to our flesh or the devil. All of your heart must be given to the Lord. We must keep seeking Christ and his righteousness first at all times. (See: Matthew 6:33). Loving and trusting God with our whole heart at all times is what we are called to do! (See: Proverbs 3:5-7 and Psalm 62:8). For when one fully and wholly loves and trusts God with our whole heart, it will make it harder for the devil to get us to sway. We can stand firm in Christ. There will be times where we will indeed fail time and time again, but each time we must keep repenting, seeking forgiveness, standing back up with Christ within us and to keep fighting the good fight of faith! (See: Proverbs 24:16 and 1 Timothy 6:12). We must keep resisting the devil and repenting when we do give into our selfishness and the devil's ways. (See: James 4:7-10). If we desire to follow Christ, we must continually keep His commandments daily! With every day that we are given, we must make the choice with whom we will serve and love! It’s a constant Spiritual battle between choosing to deny the flesh and choosing to serve Christ or to fulfill the lusts of the flesh and serve the devil. (See: Joshua 24:15). In the end, it’s up to you who gets to continually make these decisions time and time again, but that doesn’t make the decision-making less important. What will you choose to serve today: lust or love, the devil or Christ?
Do you keep God’s commandments? Do you truly and genuinely love others with the agape love of God? Do you show partiality when it comes to loving one another as God has loved us? Do you trust and obey the Lord? Do you seek God first? Do you let partiality get in the way of loving one another with the agape love of God? Do you genuinely repent when you fall short of God’s glory? Whom will you choose to serve today?
“And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Mark 12:29-33
