As a pastor, I’ve learned that when you get a group of people together and ask them how they love God, you will get many different answers. This is because God’s Word is received and perceived differently by each of us. Loving God with all your heart is a personal experience you must witness according to how God talks to you.
When the Spirit of love is present, it’s easy to love God and be faithful to Him. It’s easy to deny your flesh and obey His words above your own desires. When you love God, your choices focus on Him, not yourself. Having a love of God in your heart changes your life forever.
We will always be talking about this subject, but today I want to answer a common question that many people have. If the love of God is not present in me, how do I get it? This question is easy to answer, and I will answer it below. But at the same time, I will also answer how I increase my love for God if love is already present in me.
The simple answer is that you must be taught the love of God in both instances. You must receive love when He gives it to you. Remember, love is a fruit of the Spirit; therefore, it must be given by the Spirit. Love is not just an emotion. Emotions are an effect of love, something you feel because love is present. True love is God, for God is love. The way God gives you His love is to speak a word to you that you receive, and it fills your heart, and you begin to love Him.
If God is the Word, and God is love, then the Word is love, and love is the Word. They are the same in one. When the Word of God has been taught to you, and you begin to notice a change in your life, don’t be surprised when you begin to love God more. Don’t be surprised as you begin to lay aside things of the world that you used to love more than God. It’s because in every Word of God taught to you, love is there in that Word. So while you may not be focused on love itself, love will still fill your heart because you are learning the Word, and the Word is love.
You learn to love God by learning the Word of God and following it with all your heart.
God gives you the love of God that you need to love Him back. We love Him because He first loved us. He loves us by giving us His Word, and as we are changed into His same likeness, we present ourselves back to Him in the likeness that He gave us, and that likeness is love. So we love Him by offering ourselves back to Him as the Word of God.
Once you receive His Word, it begins to grow in you, and over time you learn to love Him more than anything else in your life.
Love is like any other word of God; it must be learned. How you learn is to have God make it known to you, and then you can receive it and become one with it. It may start small, like a seed, then grow to greater heights. But as long as the Word is there in you, you will love God through that Word.
Finally, I want you to read John 17. You will see how important it is to hear and receive His Word there. And when you get to the last verse, it will be clear that Jesus was joining us with Him and His Father in the same love they shared.
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