Love God
by Brandy Webb
My last blog looked at seeking God’s Kingdom first, and one of my main ideas that I hope I got across is to make sure God the Father and Christ our Messiah are priority number one in our lives. My blog before dealt with God working all things out for good to those who love Him (Romans 8:28). Well, my mom brought up how the two blogs actually go together. Trusting God that all things will work for good requires us to put God first in our lives, which also requires us to love Him totally. She then asked, “So how does one show love to God?”
This question may seem easy to answer, but what she was getting at was the fact that when we show love to each other we hug, we talk, we listen, we say I love you; we have a relationship with each other. So, how does that look like with a Spirit Being?
I started thinking about that question, and what I thought it means to love God. I know that I desire to love God. I talk to Him daily. However, I started wondering how well my life reflected my love for God? Plus, how well do I treat Him? I think sometimes I do not acknowledge that God has feelings. He may be all powerful, ultimate Creator, Healer, Protector, and way more, but He still has feelings. Here are just a few scriptures to show His feelings:
Regret – And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart (Genesis 6:6).
Anger – Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight. None was left but the tribe of Judah only (2 Kings 17:18).
Jealousy – For you must not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14).
Sadness – Jesus Wept (John 11:35).
Joy – The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy (Zephaniah 3:17).
Compassion – For the LORD will judge His people And will have compassion on His servants (Psalm 135:14).
Mercy – Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy (1 Peter 2:10).
Love – 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37-39).
In fact, I have a feeling that, since we are created in His image, He has all the types of emotions that we feel. He just knows how to handle them better than we do. My point is that sometimes I think I do not treat Him the way He should be treated. My prayers sometimes sound like a wish list. Sometimes they probably sound like they are full of whining and complaining. I know that I can go to Him with everything, but I wonder if sometimes He wishes that I would just have a conversation with Him like I would my human dad. I bet He even wishes I would do less talking and more listening. I realize that I often make the mistake of finding times to accomplish everything on my list for the day except for the most important thing, reading my Bible diligently, so that I can hear His words.
The truth, for me, is that if I would make it a point to acknowledge His feelings, I could then start learning how to love Him better. He cares about us, and He wants us to care about Him. So, how do we really show compassion to Him? We love the way He loves us. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever shall believe in Him will have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Maybe we should then say, “We so loved our God that we gave up our ‘lives’ to follow Him.”
We may not be able to give God a big hug. We may not be able to physically talk back and forth with Jesus. However, we can give a hug to someone who needs one. We can physically call someone who would love to have another person to talk to. We can visit people who are sick or the elderly in a retirement home. There are countless things that we can do for each other that would show love to God by how we love one another. Whatever you do to others you do to Jesus (Matthew 25:45).
These are all actions, not words. We show our love to God when we love one another (1 John 4:20). We show love to God when we lay down our lives for others (John 15:13). We show love to God when we stand up for what we believe in despite the naysayers. We show love for God when we trust Him with our very lives. We also show love to God when we accept His will for our lives. As a wise woman who suffered much said, “To love God is to love His will. That which He gives we receive. That which He takes we relinquish” (Elisabeth Elliot Secure in the Everlasting Arms, p 19). Love God the best way you know how, because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).