Elizabeth Proske, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Elizabeth Proske
Loving God Part 1 2/3/2013 6:14:20 PM
A young friend's questions have shaken up my views on what it means to love God.
“Ms. Liz, how can I show God how muchI love Him?” asked Davonte (real person, fake name), a recently saved 18-year-old friend of mine who had stumbled across Deuteronomy 6:5,“And you shall love the Lord your Godwith all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Davonte is a hyper-sensitive, emotion-driven poet, and I'm sure he had visions of himself playing a harp and singing psalms like David the shepherd boy, or dancing his heart out before God like David the king. Those things are great, and God is definitely big on having His children praise Him.
On the other hand, I am practical to a fault, so I responded with the obvious (to me) basics – go to church, pray, read the Bible. I topped off my utilitarian reply by pointing out a couple of scriptures– John 14:15, where Jesus told Philip, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” andJohn 14:23, where He made a similar statement, “If a man loves me,he will keep My Words.”
Seemed pretty clear to me. Thankfully,it's the Blood of Christ that saves me, not obeying His Word, because I will always fall short, but I always assumed that I showed God my love for Him by doing my best to live by His standards.
Davonte, poetic soul that he is, was visibly disappointed in my pragmatic answer, so I went to dig alittle deeper. That's one of the great things about mentoring young people – in their idealistic hunger for God, they challenge me to get out of my own little rut.
Anyway, while searching for an answer for Davonte, I happened across Revelation 2:1-4, where God commends the church of Ephesus for all their good deeds, for not tolerating wickedness, for persevering,and on and on, but at the end, in spite of all that, He's upset because they lost "their first love” for Him.
“To the angel of the church of Ephesus write,‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: 2 “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 3 and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 4 Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love...” Revelation 2:1-4
What?! So living right's not enough to prove that we love Him?What else does He expect?
There's another story found in Mark 10 and a couple of the other gospels, where a man tells Jesus that he's kept all the commandments since he was young, and Jesus tells him he's still lacking something.
18Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”19 So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. 20 You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Honor your father and your mother.’ ”21 And he said, “All these things I have kept from my youth.” 22 So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
So obviously there's more to this “loving God” business than “just” obeying Him (which is hard enough sometimes!) Now all this may make perfect sense to all of you out there, but I think I need to explore this a little more. For Davonte's sake. And my own.
I'll pick this up again next week if anyone's interested inexploring it with me.
