What are the primary
foundations of our faith? Have you taken the time to think about
that? There are a great many ideas and philosophies that make up
Christianity, but ultimately I think it comes down to a few basics
that are the heart of it all. Today is the first of what I hope to
be several looks at what makes up the primary basis for our lives and
faith.
So what is first? Well
-cue drum roll- I'm going to start with … Love! Love more than
anything else stands as an unmistakable pillar of all we believe.
1Corinthians 13:13 “And
now abide faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of
these is love.”
Psalms 40:16 “Let
all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
Let such as love Your
salvation say continually, "The LORD be magnified!"
Of
course love has many aspects as I believe I've mentioned before.
Today however I'm going to focus on one very specific love, our love
for God. God is our Father, our Savior, our Friend, He is so many
things that we love here on earth but I don't think we take the time
to truly understand what it is to love Him. This is the being who
DIED for us and yet many of us (myself included) often give very
little thought to how we are loving Him every day. Our days can slip
right past us and we give Him only a cursory glance. However the
Bible tells us to love God and to do it actively! It's important to
remember that this isn't optional, it's a command.
Deuteronomy
6:5 "You shall love the LORD your God
with all your heart,
with all your soul, and
with all your strength.”
Deuteronomy
10:12 "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God
require of you,
but to fear the LORD
your God, to walk in all His ways
and to love Him, to
serve the LORD
your God with all your
heart and with all your soul,”
Mark
12:30 “And you shall love the LORD your God with
all your heart, with all your soul,
with all your mind, and
with all your strength.' This is the first commandment.”
Micah
6:8 “He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD
require of you
But to do justly, To
love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”
So
faced with the knowledge that to love God is not a suggestion, how do
we go about it? Well here again (as always) we have the Bible to
inform us.
John
14:15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments.”
John
14:23 “Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves
Me,
he will keep My word;
and My Father will love him,
and We will come to him
and make Our home with him.”
John
14:24 "He who does not love Me does not keep My words;
and the word which you
hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.”
Psalms
119:10 “With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not
wander from Your commandments!”
Now I
know some people are rather put off by this. They think it odd that
to love God means doing what He says, but think about it; I love my
fiance by speaking and listening to her, by giving her gifts, by
spending time with her, by trying to fulfill her desires, etc. Why
does this suddenly seem shocking when we hear it about God? Look at
it another way, we claim to believe that God is the ultimate good.
We claim that He wants only whats best for us. If that's all true
than shouldn't we want to follow His commands? Shouldn't we realize
that the commands given to us by our all loving Father who wants only
our best and who is incapable of evil, are good? So if we believe
what He has told us, if we trust Him, if we LOVE Him, we SHOULD be
listening to Him right? So our obedience becomes the outward
expression of our love, the physical proof that our hearts and minds
are bent in His direction.
One
more thing. God is (among many things) a God of promises. We are
commanded to love Him but that's not all!
Psalms
31:23 “Oh, love the LORD, all you His saints! For the LORD
preserves the faithful,
And fully repays the proud person.”
Psalms
145:20 “The LORD preserves all who love Him, But all the wicked
He will destroy.”
Deuteronomy 11:13-15“And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My
commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and
serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will
give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the
latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and
your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock,
that you may eat and be filled.”
When we
place God first He will take care of the rest. God blesses those who
seek Him.
Finally,
like everything else in the Christian walk, loving God perfectly is
difficult if not impossible to do alone. While we are here on earth
and trapped in the presence of sin we will continue to fail and
falter. God knows this and gives us His strength and it is through
His Spirit that we can succeed. At the end of days when we again
bask in His presence, all the shadows will melt away and our
struggling striving love will be perfected.
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