This is what I am called to do.
It is surprising how quickly I get distracted from this. Distracted by good things
- Love the bible
- Love reading and studying the bible
- Love teaching
- Love worshiping
- Love talking about God and Jesus
- Love going to church
All good things...but they are not the same as loving God.
3 comments:
What do you mean? I agree that there must be some emotive or mental element in our love for God, but the primary biblical teaching is that loving God is something we do as a proper response of gratitude to His salvation, which is to be expressed in actions and behaviour. Moses says we should love God with all our heart soul & strength, which is set in the context of all of His Levitical commands. Solomon says the duty of man is to fear God and keep His commandments. James says no amount of mental acknowledgement will benefit us without the actions to back it up. Christ Himself says if we love Him we we will keep His commands. Each of the things you listed are biblical commands(fellowship,worship,studying the Word) - how can you separate them from loving God? But perhaps you meant something else?
I agree that we cannot remove our actions from our emotions. In fact I would say that even when we don't feel like loving God we should still do things in response to him. So we should continue to go to church, read the bible...
It is like loving my wife. Even when I don't feel like loving my wife I need to still act lovingly toward her. In fact in acting lovingly toward her my feelings return (the same can be said of God).
The problem I am highlighting is that sometimes I replace love for God with love for something else. For example I love going to church. There are many reasons I love going to church. I love connecting with my friends, meeting other people, seeing the children (love children's features), love the music, love singing... And what happens is that I say "love going to church and that means I love God." That is not necessarily true. God does not even have to be part of why I go to church. Which is why the prophets of the Bible state that God at times hates it when people come to worship because it isn't about him at all.
Yeah, if we love God we will do these things. But we should realize that just because we do these things does automatically mean we love God. Read about the Pharisees in the Bible.
I see what you mean - yes, obedience is required of us in spite of our feelings. Thanks for fleshing it out.
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