![]() Ask God every day to give you ‘undying love for the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Ephes 6:24).When you are about to meet a difficult person, say in your mind, ‘I love you’.Remember to say to God when you are doing the most enjoyable, stimulating and exciting tasks in ministry, ‘I am doing this because I love you’.Dignify and enrich even the most mundane, tedious or demanding tasks in life and ministry by saying to God as you do them, ‘I am doing this because I love you’.Love God’s people, and tell them that you love them.Love God’s commands and do them, and love Jesus’ teaching.Tell God you love him, and tell Jesus that you love him.This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. Meditate on God’s love for you in the cross of the Lord Jesus:. ![]() Ask God to pour his love into your heart through the Holy Spirit, so that you have more love with which to love him.Ask God to transform you so that you do indeed love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.So what should we do? The simple answer is, ‘Love God, and love Jesus’.īut what does this look like? Practical SuggestionsĪsk God to transform you so that you do indeed love the Lord your God. In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived – the things God has prepared for those who love him … (1 Cor 2:9) We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? (Jas 2:5)Īnd two promises about loving God from Paul: Here are two promises about loving God from James:īlessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. Jesus tells us to love God: ‘ 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 John’s gospel we read that Jesus asked Peter three times, ‘ Do you love me?’, and Peter replied three times, ‘ You know that I love you’ (Jn 21:15.16,17). Paul wrote, ‘Grace to all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with an undying love.’ (Ephes 6:24) Have you ever noticed these words? Peter wrote, ‘Though you have not seen him (Jesus Christ), you love him …’ (1 Pet 1:8) Jesus said, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.’ (Jn 14:23) Love the LORD, all his faithful people! (Ps 31:23). Love the LORD your God … be very careful to love the LORD your God. (Jos 22:5, 23:11). The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts … so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. God will discipline and transform his people so that they do love him: The LORD your God is testing you to see if you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deut 13:3). God tests his people to find out if they do love him: I command you today to love the LORD your God … Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. Love the LORD your God … love the LORD your God and serve him … love the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him. What does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul? (Deut 10:12 and see 19:9). ![]() The book of Deuteronomy is full of exhortations to love God. God tests his people to find out if they do love him Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. (Deut 6:5) If directive questions could achieve it, I imagine that he did soon love Jesus! Do You Love God? Then, pointing to her even smaller brother, whose nappy was about to fall off, she said, ‘He doesn’t yet, but he soon will’. When I arrived at St Thomas’ Richmond in December 1967 as a humble theological student to preach my first sermon (to four people), a small girl met me as I got out of the car.
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