How Do You Love God?

There is a huge movement in society these days that you just need to “love yourself.” That what other people think doesn’t matter and that if you can learn to truly love yourself, that will bring true happiness and contentment.

What if I were to tell you that was the worst advice I’ve ever heard and I’m being dead-serious?

People might paint me as a hater. Someone who wants to take over and control the feelings of others. Someone who doesn’t believe in letting people express themselves however they want. Someone who wants to have a say over what other people do with their time, their words, and their body.

I’m not going to lie and say none of those things that you may think of me are true. Some might be. Probably not in the way you perceive them to be, but they very well may be true. I would prefer you ask me about them as I’m always happy to talk about it, but it is what it is.

Another thing, similar to the first “movement” I mentioned is a “I make mistakes, but God loves me still.”

At first glance, I 100% agree. There is not one thing that you can do that will separate you from the love of God. Romans 8:35-39 if you would like a source.

When I hear people saying things like this, it’s usually in relation to someone telling them that something they’re doing is wrong. Sometimes lovingly, unfortunately, often times not. Because it often comes unlovingly, there is a reaction I think to defend. This comes out as the above. “I make mistakes but God loves me still.”

What this misses is a key component that I think ties both of these movements together.

The question is not about whether God still loves you. We have already determined that he does and that nothing will change that.

The question is, how do you show that you love God?

This is directed at believers of course. If you don’t claim to be a Christian there are obviously other conversations that would need to happen before getting to this. But if you are someone who believes in God/professes to be a Christian, how are you showing that you love Him?

I’ll give you a quick answer that I stole from the Bible: “If you love me you will keep my commandments” John 14:15 100%, feel free to go look at this in context. People like to pull things out of context, but I believe this stands alone as well as it does in context.

Notice that it is not, “by keeping my commandments, you love me.” It’s not because of keeping his commandments that you earn something or have achieved something. But our love of God is manifested in our lives by keeping his commandments.

The question in all of these things is not whether God loves you, the question is do you love Him?

What if every morning we woke up and said “God, hallowed be your name” instead of flipping through our Instagram to see how many people hallowed our name?

People I think get bogged down by all these “rules” that God has. These commands that surely restrict us from full happiness. Instead, what if we understood that every command that he gives us he gives for our benefit. He gives it to us because he knows we will live infinitely better if we follow them. What if it’s not a dungeon of rules but a treasure map to a content life?

The commandments alone can’t bring contentment, but by loving God — loving him enough to follow his commandments — that’s when the contentment comes.

If this is the case, that following God’s commandments is how you love him, how are you to know this unless you are in his word, learning and understanding his commandments? And if that’s the case, how are you to love God unless you are actively in the word growing and learning?

What if the secret to living a happy, joy-filled life wasn’t loving yourself more or better, but loving God?

How are you loving God?