“Love God . . . with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!” (Deuteronomy 6:5, The Message)

“Whosoever loves believes the impossible.” –Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh

A quick search of Amazon.com yields over 365,000 current books about love (imagine a stack of a thousand books for every day of the year); and there are over 100,000 books about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.  So if the amount written about a subject is any indicator of how much people are thinking about it, we probably think a lot more about love than we do about God.  On the other hand, there are over five times as many books about God as there are about sex . . . there goes that theory.

So why are such a significant number of people writing books about love and God, or more to the point, where are so many people buying books about love and God?  Maybe it’s stating the obvious, but perhaps a great number of people aren’t fully satisfied with their love lives or with their spiritual lives.  It seems that almost everyone is hungry for deeper, richer, and more satisfying relationships.  If our interactions with God or with others have been bad, we want better.  If they’ve been good, we want even more.

So What Does it all Mean, Anyway?

Unfortunately, like so many of the words that Hollywood or Fifth Avenue have gotten hold of, love and God have been used and abused to the point where they might mean practically anything or virtually nothing depending on who’s talking.  And as we said, lots of people are talking and writing about them.  Let’s look at how love and God go together.

One common definition for love is an intense feeling of deep affection.  Love can be the soaring romantic feeling that makes Prince Charming want to sing to Sleeping Beauty, or the unbearably tragic longing that moves the hideously deformed Quasimodo to risk his life and save the beautiful Esmeralda.  Love is a little bit crazy.  It causes people to take risks and make sacrifices for no other reason than to please or benefit their beloved.  Infatuation and obsession can be self-focused and demanding.  But true love isn’t only passionate and enduring; it unfailingly puts the best interests of the beloved ahead of its own.

Contrary to prevailing images from television and movies, the love most of us hunger for is more than a feeling we fall into when the chemistry is right . . . or fall out of when things get too hard or confining.  Love may begin with the gooey-eyed giving and receiving of valentines, but it only finds fulfillment in the faithful keeping of difficult vows.  It’s for richer and for poorer.  It’s in sickness and health.  It’s about forsaking all others and signing up for joint savings and checking accounts.  Real love is joyful and painful.  It is extraordinary moments of rapture and everyday chores like washing dishes in the sink or picking your socks up off the floor.  It’s incredibly easy and totally impossible.  Hundreds of thousands of books can’t adequately express it, but somehow it’s all there in the three simple words: “I love you!”

Interestingly, when the Apostle John looked for just the right words to explain what a relationship with God looks like, he used three simple words as well, “God is love” (I John 4:8b).  John writes that if you don’t love, you can’t know God, because that’s what his infinite power and unspeakable glory are in a nutshell—love.  The greatest and most unselfish expression of love that has ever been seen on the planet was a message from God to you.  Jesus’ 30-year journey from the manger to the cross was all about demonstrating those three simple words to you.  As John eloquently records:

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son.  And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life” (John 3:16, The Message).

Here is a compassion that transcends human failings.  Here is a caring that lasts forever.  It’s a deeper, more real love that—unlike even the best parent or truest husband or wife—keeps each and every one of its promises.  The popular word for this miracle is “unconditional love.”

So what is our response to that?

How Can We Love God?

First John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us” (NIV).  In other words, our love is a natural response to God’s nearly incomprehensible kindness, passion, and sacrifice for us.  Like a verse of the old hymn “How Great Thou Art”: “When I think that God, his Son not sparing, sent him to die; I scarce can take it in.”

“Taking in” the magnitude of God’s gifts to us and grasping what they mean is part of what life is all about.  In fact, a human lifetime isn’t long enough to really “get it.”  That’s why heaven was invented.

We’ve said that getting to know God has a lot in common with getting to know a friend.  The same thing is true when it comes to loving God.  When you really love someone, one of the things you almost unconsciously do is figure out what pleases that person.  Watch the eyes of a couple in the first throes of young love.  Watch how they intensely scan each other’s faces for the slightest hint of pleasure.  Without thinking about it, they tune in to the messages transmitted by tiny shifts in posture and minute movements in the eyes or mouth of their beloved.  The only reward they’re looking for is a big smile, a slight squeeze of the hand—any acknowledgement of the love they share.

This is listening and then some.  The Bible paints a wonderfully similar picture when it says, “The Lord your God is with you . . . He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17, NIV).

But how can you return such love when you can’t see the expression in God’s eyes, or what makes his face light up?  It actually is possible to find out what pleases God!  God’s given us an entire history to reveal what he loves and hates.  Just look carefully at the stories in the Bible—the lives of the prophets, saints, apostles, and Jesus.  Study the way they walked and talked with God.  Look at their acts of compassion toward hurting and hungry people—the honesty and respect they showed in talking to their heavenly Father.  Indeed, by looking at the tiniest things Jesus and these others said and did on earth, you can know what makes God beam with joy.

Of course if you want a short list of the qualities that delight God’s heart, just take a look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a.

“Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails” (NIV).

That’s the amazing and challenging picture of God’s love!  It’s exactly what we want from him and precisely what God longs for from us—both in our relationship with him and our relationships with everyone else.  It’s a pretty tall order unless we allow his love to get inside us and conquer our self-absorbed nature.

Steve [Sjogren] finds great encouragement in the fact that Jesus is not only the miraculous Son of God, but over 60 times in the New Testament Jesus calls himself the “Son of Man.”

“The idea is that it’s not just the supernatural Son of God who can love like this.  I think one reason Jesus called himself ‘the Son of Man’ so often was he wanted to make his kind of love available to human beings—and not just as recipients.  No matter who we are, we can love like the Son of Man!  His love flowing into us and through us provides an anointing of credibility to a world that is sick of falseness and ‘fakey-anity.’  Mother Teresa was only 4 feet 11 inches tall, but the authority that came from really loving people like Jesus made her a giant.

Maybe you don’t feel like you’re in the same league as Mother Teresa, but if you act upon Christ’s teachings and follow his example, God’s love will truly be made complete in you (l John 2:5a, NIV).  You will become living, breathing examples of God’s love.  First John 2:5-6 goes on to say that, “This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (NIV).  You don’t have to walk on water to walk like Jesus, but follow his example in the way you live each moment of your life.  The secret isn’t having miraculous powers at all; it’s in allowing your love for God to guide your steps—just as Jesus did.  If you’ve ever loved another human being in a truly unselfish way, you have some idea of what we’re talking about.

How Loving God Is Like Loving Anyone

Loving someone subtly changes how you think and act.  Instead of thinking and acting only for yourself, you begin plotting ways to show your love—saving up for gifts to give that person, secretly planning to take your loved one out to the perfect play, or trying to score tickets to the sold-out sporting event of a favorite team.  Maybe when you go on a trip, you pick up little trinkets that say, “Even though we couldn’t be together, I was thinking of you.”  Or maybe you pack little notes or surprises in his or her lunchbox or luggage.  You may even go on a diet or sit (uncomplaining) through a movie or opera you can’t stand.  You make much bigger sacrifices because you know it will make that person happy.  It may sound a little mushy, but loving God is kind of like that.

The same kinds of unselfish impulses apply to loving God.  Instead of thinking of yourself, think about what you can do that will warm God’s heart throughout the day.  You know how much God loves generosity, so you go out of your way to do something kind in his name.  Put change in the coin return of a pay phone wrapped in a note that says, “This is a free gift for you because God loves you!”  You know how much God loves spending time alone with you, so set aside an hour to just have a long conversation with God—no particular agenda in mind, just a time to share your thoughts and listen.

Though God knows everything and never leaves your side, God still enjoys it when you joyfully do things just because you know God likes them.  That’s part of what 2 Corinthians 9:7 means when it says, “God loves a person who gives cheerfully.”  Though love and duty invariably go hand in hand, God wants you to experience joy in being loved by him and in loving him back.  You wouldn’t feel dutifully obliged to go out and get those tickets for the special sporting event or the play we talked about earlier . . . you’d just naturally do it to please the one you love.  And you’d be excited about doing it.

That’s exactly how it can be with God—a natural and overwhelming desire to make God happy.  The more you love God, the more excited you’ll be about doing things with God and for God.

There is a word to describe putting your devotion for God into words and actions.  The word is worship.  It’s another one of those words that has lost some of its power and meaning over the last few centuries.  Our word for worship comes from the Old English weorthscipe: to regard with ardent or adoring esteem or devotion . . . to show God’s true worth by your words and your deeds.

Unfortunately many people today think of worship as synonymous with religious ceremonies that involve singing—ceremonies that primarily take place in churches on Sunday mornings.  It’s simply not true . . . this is such a limited version of a concept that is meant to be very rich and personal.  The Bible describes a much more holistic idea of worship: “Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him” (Romans 12:1, The Message).

This is a picture of worship that can happen any place or any time.  If you like to sing, sing to God about what he means to you.  If you like to go hiking, take a hike and talk with God.  Stop every now and then to breathe in the fresh air and appreciate the beauty around you—the beauty God made.  If you like to write, write him a poem or an essay.  If you like to build with your hands, make something for God and give it to somebody he’d want to have it.  You get the picture. Whatever it takes for you to live everyday moments in a way that expresses God’s wonder and worth—that’s what worship is.  Going to church is a good thing.  We highly recommend finding a congregation where people really want to experience and show love for God; sharing your joy with others just makes it richer.  But please don’t confine your worship to the inside of any building.  It’s just not natural.

Loving and worshipping God is all-inclusive.  It involves setting aside time to talk and to listen.  It involves reading and studying the stories of Scripture and continuing that story in your own life.  It involves discovering the gifts and talents God has given you, and using those talents to bring joy to God.  This is the worship God wants—and it’s probably more exciting than you ever imagined.  As your love grows, so will the depth and variety of ways you can connect with God.

It’s very possible to love someone who is invisible in such a way as to make that someone become visible to the eyes of your heart.  We can live as Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers, encourages us to do:

“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy” (1 Peter 1:8, NIV).  If you’re still not quite sure what developing and sharing deeper, more intimate connections with God might look like for you; well, that’s the topic of the next reading.

Getting Your Feet Wet  (feel free to comment here or on the Reflection Pool questions)

Set aside an hour and plan something really special to do with or for God.  Maybe you can do something we described in this reading, such as a hike with God, time spent showing compassion to those who are hurting, or an hour of journaling your thoughts to God.  Or maybe you have your own ideas of how to “surprise” God with your love for him.

The Reflection Pool

Did anything in this chapter surprise or impact you?  Why?

How might the idea of personal, everyday worship change the way you live your life?

When do you feel like it’s easiest for you to show God love?  How can you show God love during other times throughout your day?