What does it mean to love God? I claim it all the time. Today I am wondering what it means.
The Greek agape doesn’t do it.
The Hebrew chesed does not express it.
God’s love for us fits both those words. Our love for each other also works. Those are the expressions of mercy, lovingkindness, patience, etc, toward people on our level and below but it doesn’t work going up. There is no way I can have mercy on God. I might express them toward a parent when I am a child but as Paul said, “When I became a man I did away with childish things.”
Yet we are told to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
This has to be more than the “love” a dog expresses toward almost anything that moves.
I am remembering some teacher at one point in my mind saying that agape love means expressing preference for the other person. Here I go to the second chapter of Philippians. After including agape in the opening verses, he comes to verse 3,
(Php 2:3-4 KJV) Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:So loving God means putting Him and His desires before myself. He has priority. We exist for Him and His glory. To accept that and live that means I am loving God.
And remember that Biblical love is always a choice, not an emotion.
homo unius libri
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