Showing God our love

   Showing God our love

Part of the definition of love involves caring about the well-being of another. We know that God’s well-being is already established, so a sensible interpretation of caring about God’s well-being is caring about pleasing Him. We know that God experiences pleasure. Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that He “rejoices over us with singing.” One of the obvious ways we show our love to God is by praising Him. Hebrews 13:15 says, “…let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”

 We must also accept His great love for us, which includes accepting and valuing ourselves.

If we ever question our own self-worth, we have to remember that according to Genesis 1: 26, “God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” Further, He sent His own Son to redeem us from the condemnation which was the result of man’s disobedience. Romans 5:8 tells us that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” And according to Ephesians 1:6 “He made us accepted in the Beloved.” Eugene H. Peterson expressed this concept so beautifully in The Message:

Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.

We must rely on Him, the way a child relies on her parent. Jesus said that unless we became like little children we would not enter His kingdom. We have to humble ourselves before Him, seeking His will above our own.

There’s a verse in Psalm 34 that says, “Delight yourself also in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” I always thought this meant that if I delighted in Him, He would give me whatever I wanted. However, I just learned that the desires He’ll give me are the desires He wants for me. In other words, He’ll change my mind about what I thought I wanted. His desire according to Matthew 6:33 is that I “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things would be added to me.”

Another way we show our love to God is by being grateful.

We show Him our love by trusting Him, believing what He said in His word and believing in His good plans that He has for us.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Keeping God’s Commandments as proof of our love for Him

I’ve heard many ministers say that the way we show our love to God is by keeping His commandments. Jesus said to His disciples many times “If you love Me, keep My commandments.

John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keep them, it is he who loves Me…”

John 14:23 “…if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word…”

John 15:10 “If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love…”

John 15:12 “This is My commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.”

 It’s important to remember what the most important commandment was the one given by Jesus before He went to the cross: love one another! The most important way we show God our love is by obeying His command that we love one another. In order to have and abide in the fruit of the Spirit is to first have the Holy Spirit inside. If we’re ruled by God’s Spirit, we will easily overcome the temptations to lie, cheat, steal, engage in idolatry, disobey our parents, etc. Remember when the Ten Commandments were given to Moses on Mount Sinai, they were also given an out: they could present animals to the priest for sacrifice once a year to be cleansed from sin. Thank God that when Jesus, the perfect sacrifice for sin, was offered up, our sins are forever forgiven by the blood that He shed. Once accepting Christ into our hearts and being filled with the Holy Spirit, we are redeemed from the penalty of sin. The Bible says that the commandment to love each other is the fulfillment of all the earlier commandments.

Romans 13:9 “⁹ For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.