In Love With God

     The greatest commandment in all of Scripture is, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

     In Love With God—this is the thought that overwhelmed me as I was listening to a song by Kari Jobe called “My Beloved.” “Come away with me” the lyrics went. I so long for this deep, deep love of God; this real and rich relationship that keeps us seeking more of him. Something greater, something deeper, something purer than simply being joyful in God. It's something more than anything the world has known. Perhaps you have known something of a comparison if you have ever been in love with a person. When a heart is in love, the heart becomes heavy with love. The mind also becomes consumed with thoughts of this person. There is a new richness in life—a brightness, a fullness, a hope. Where there once existed dullness and drudgery, there is now energy and passion.

     The Bible says, “Let love be genuine … Love one another with brotherly affection” (Romans 13:9-10), and “love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22). So if our love for people is to be with affection, then of course our love for God is to be also. We are warned in the Bible about our love growing cold (Mathew 24:12), our love being lukewarm (Revelation 3:16), and forsaking our first love (Revelation 2:4). There is a true love in the true Christian; a love that involves deep passions and hot affections.

     I don't experience this love nearly as much as I would like to. Oftentimes my heart is dull, and I disappoint my divine Love by my weak love. But my heart has indeed been captured by his love. And being thus captured, I simply cannot move on to anything or anyone else. My life has become a continual looking to him and a seeking after him. This love keeps me strong; it keeps me from sin; it keeps me faithful to him.

     The Great Love in the Death of Christ—this is where my thoughts will close—that the love of the Son of God is so great, that he shed his blood on a cross for my soul. Consider this closing verse:

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”—2 Corinthians 5:14-15