May 27, 2025

Dear Friends,

Do you love God? What does that love look like on a daily basis? What does it feel like?

Most people that have been following Jesus for awhile would have no problem describing how God loves them. Verses like “God so loved the world …” and “God demonstrates his love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us,” and others of that tenor are not hard to find or to quote. We are aware of God’s extravagant love for us and to what lengths he goes in loving us. It may be hard for us to actually live in this love but we tend to know about it.

On the other hand, if we are to live in an interactive relationship with God, that implies that we are also to be loving him. In my quiet time yesterday, I read these words from the Song of Songs: “love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.” While this book is a series of love poems, some interpreters through the centuries, have also seen it as a metaphor for the loving relationship between Christ and the church.

So, I ask again, what should your love for God look like? Should there be feelings attached to it? If so, what feelings?

I’m not sure how you would answer these questions but, as I meditated on the subject, I came up with these observations. First, Jesus made it clear that to love him was to obey his commandments. The apostle John added that anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. He also adds that anyone who loves the Father will love his Son as well. Jesus also told the disciples that, if they loved him, they would be glad that he was going back to his Father.

There is not a lot said in scripture about the emotional side of loving God but we do get a few clues. The Psalms tell us that the righteous person delights in God’s law, in God’s works as they are made known, in doing his will. Jesus loved his Father by submitting to his will. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that he endured the cross because of the joy he saw on the other side of it. We could also think of Paul’s “more excellent way” and attempt to work through loving God in ways that Paul describes.

It’s not an easy thing to love God any more than it is an easy thing to love another human being. We have to work at it. I raise the issue because, if you are like me, you will settle for a few ways to express your love and simply keep doing those things. There’s nothing wrong with that but isn’t it possible that we can discover new depths of love for God if we will only make the effort to do so? May God guide us in reciprocating that great love which he has given to us!

Blessings!

Doug