Someone once told me, when you love, you love. There is no degree to loving.
Leo Tolstoy defined love with this:
“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”
But what is love really? We often use it carelessly - a word so full and deep lost of its true meaning.
Defining love cannot be separated with how you love. It is a conscious and a total effort of giving in one self to the beloved. Last Sunday, we were shown how to love the real way in How's Your Love Life? and Loving God Passionately in CCF service.
Everything begins with love and what we love takes hold of our life. If we love God then, then we know He holds our life. He directs our being in our daily living.
But how do we say we love Him? Is it just a mere acknowledgment that we do? A mere escape from the lips and an empty public declaration?
Loving God and even just simply loving includes a total involvement of the heart, soul, mind and strength. It is giving our best because we are enjoying the gift from the Lord.
In Luke 10:27 it is said,
He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; ...
How does it mean to love God with all our heart?
Loving God with all our heart means surrendering even our emotions to God. We love Him in our own self, our own personalities, our reasoning. But our focus is on Him, not on us. We just simply love him the way we love. The way we make time for our beloved, our family members, our friends. It is a commitment of the heart. Putting Him first above everything. Dropping everything to be with Him the moment He calls you. Fearing to break His heart and disobeying His will.
As Bob Pierce of World Vision said, "Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God." It's the ultimate love that binds, that is courageous to stand up for your beloved, and hurt with things that hurt him.
Loving God with all our soul...
Means valuing God above everything even in sin. It is dying to your sin and the temptation to sin every day of your life. It is denying the lust of the eyes, flesh and the pride of life. To what extent are you willing to suffer for your beloved?
More importantly it is also this...
At this point, who or what is your LIFE?
Are you willing to give it up for God?
Loving God will all your soul is the union of loving God with our personality and everything that "gives us life and breath" in this world.
The people who inspire you, the thing that motivates you, you give to God. He or She is God's. Your work, your family is God's. Everything is God's. Giving all these up for Him is a sign of total commitment to God - of how much you love Him with your soul. Placing Him above your family, your wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, children, work, and passions.
Loving God with all your MIND...
When you love God with your mind, you love Him in truth. Sometimes people use the term "God's will" as an expression to justify situations and even their actions, however they do not consult His will.
How do we know of His will? God has provided us with His word to know what is true and what is right.
Loving God with your mind is aligning of what we know is TRUE to what TRUTH really is. There is a constant truth, one that doesn't change through time and goes across cultures and different upbringings. This is the truth of Scriptures.
It is also consulting God and viewing things from His perspective as we make decisions. The way to know His perspective is to constantly fill ourselves with His word. The more we are exposed to Him, the more like-minded we become with Him.
It is understanding His love for us by loving our neighbors. Imagine loving someone who wronged you. That is how fully encompassing God's love is for us. That's what we are called to do - to love without limits, without choosing who to love.
Loving God with all your STRENGTH...
Is devoting to glorify Him with every breath of our lives. God gave his 100% for us to love Him 100%. We are capable and complete to love and be loved back.
It also means giving back to God entirely. Not half-baked, not half-full. It is wanting to make ourselves useful for God. The greatest kings in the Bible did not desire significance, they were after working for God. Why?
It simply is because we are so grateful of his blessings, we enjoy it so much and we want to give Him the best. Like when someone gives you a gift when you don't expect it, you feel like you cannot thank that person enough and you are willing to return the blessing you received. Or when someone has forgiven you when you did not deserve it.
That's what God's grace does to you. It is an undeserved gift, an unmerited favor and thus we cannot help but give Him our all.
It is a mistake to think that we are not enough or that we are weak to give this 100% of ourselves.
God is telling us, "Don't think about your weakness, but think about my strength."
"In your weakness... I am strong" 2cor 12:11
God will again help us pull through to love him 100%.
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Loving God passionately is to depend on Jesus totally. It is obeying him even if it is not easy for us but because we know it is right.
The moment we love God begins the moment we can love everything the right way :)
