Our Love to God # 2

Our Love to God # 2

Love to God is not to be determined by its degree. Some writers have insisted that nothing but unselfish love is worthy of the name - that God must e loved for what He is, and our neighbor as His creature. But there is a love of gratitude as well as of delight, which makes a thankful return unto Him for His great love in Christ. This is expressly stated in 1 John 4:19, "We love Him - because He first loved us." Not only did God's love precede ours, being set upon us when we were entirely loveless - but it is the cause of ours. Not only as the divine power created it in us, but as the motive which we are conscious of in our love.

If our hearts had never been deeply affected by that transcendent love which moved God to give His own Son to die for such hell-deserving wretches as we know ourselves to be - would we have ever had any affection unto Him? No, indeed. Nor is there anything "legalistic" in this, if David hesitated not to leave it on record, "I love the LORD, because He has heard my voice and my supplications" (Psalm 96:1). I need not be ashamed to own that I love Him because He heard my cry for mercy and washed my sins away by the blood of the Lamb.

Love to God is not to be measured so much by its sensible stirrings or lively acts - as by its solid esteem and settled constitution. Some Christians are naturally more emotional and lively, and therefore more easily stirred. Nor is love to God be be gauged by our feelings - but determined by our purpose of heart and sincere endeavors to please God. Partly because the act may be more lively, where the affection is less firm in the heart. The passions of suitors may be more ardent than the love of husbands - yet not so deeply rooted, nor do they so intimately affect the heart. Straw is soon enkindled, and its heat quickly spent - but coals burn longer and more constantly. And partly because the objects of sense do more affect and urge us in the present state. While the flesh remains in the believer, he will be more sensibly stirred by the things which agree with his carnal nature.

We very much doubt if any regenerated person ever loved God for His essential goodness, before he loved Him for His beneficial goodness. The first thing which consciously awakens our love to God is a sense of favors received from Him - because the Father gave His Son for me, because the Son shed His blood for me, because the Holy Spirit quickened me. Later, as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord - there comes the realization that He is to be loved for what He is in Himself.

Love to God consists in a well-pleasedness in having Him as the soul's all-sufficient portion, of a delight in Him, of satisfaction in Him. Sometimes it is expressed in longings after and yearnings for Him. "At night my soul longs for You. Indeed, my spirit within me seeks You diligently!" (Isa. 26:9). Sometimes it is declared in speaking well of Him to others (Psalm 34:1-3). Often it is breathed forth in prayer and in praise. Occasionally it is revealed in exclamations of wonderment (1 John 3:1). It is manifested in sincere efforts to please Him, making His glory the purpose and end of our actions. It appears at its best when, in a time of sore trial and temporal straitness, its possessor "rejoices in the LORD" (Hab. 3:17-18).

Here are a few TESTS of true love to God:

1. Have you been convicted of and made to mourn over your natural enmity against God, that not only was your heart dead as a stone toward Him - but filled with antagonism to and disrelish of Him?

2. Do you love God for His holiness as well as His grace? Has it wrought in you a filial fear of displeasing Him, so that you jealously watch your heart lest it lead you away from Him? (Heb. 12:28)

3. Does love to God regulate your life, influence your walk, and move you to obedience?

4. Is it weaning you from the creature, separating you from the world, delivering from the things opposed to sincere love for God?

5. Do you love His truth? Some pretend to love all preachers and preaching alike - incapable of distinguishing error from truth.

6. Does it cause you to entertain good thoughts of God when His dispensations cross your will, moving you to place the best construction of the same and attributing them to His wisdom? For "love thinks no evil" (1 Corinthians 13:5).

7. God is truly loved above all others, when no affection for the creature can draw us deliberately to sin against Him.

8. God is truly loved, when we gladly incur and endure the displeasure and frowns of our fellows. God is truly loved when we make it our principle concern to please Him, rather than gratify the flesh or promote our worldly interests.

9. God is truly loved when the heart is wounded and grieved at the dishonor done to Him all around us (Psalm 119:53).

If your love has waned and you long for it to be revived - do not doubt God's love for you (for that will further weaken it), but look again at Christ on the Cross. The best food for our love - is to feed on His love!

~A. W. Pink~

(The End)