Love the Lord Your God

“Ah, blessed Lord, I wish I knew how I might best love you and please you, that my love were as sweet to you as your love is to me.” Margery Kempe

What a grand prayer! And an important prayer because Jesus said to the testing Pharisees that the greatest command is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37; NIV).
God’s love for us consumed him, so much that John says about him, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). His love for us is so intense, such a part of his nature, that “nothing shall separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39; NIV).
Could anything separate God from your love for him? Jesus said to love him with:

All your heart - every bit of your emotion.
All your soul - every part of your being.
All your mind - every bit of your intellect.

When we love him that much, the tragedies of life, the prayers that seem unheard, the injustices we perceive, and the sacrifices we make without immediate reward will not cause us to turn from our relationship with him.
To love God is to obey God (John 14:15). Obeying God means giving it all up for him. That’s he did for us. Paul wrote that God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). In the context of God’s love, Paul wrote that if God didn’t withhold his Son, there is nothing he wouldn’t give for us (Romans 8:32).
Does God see, in your choices, love for him? Do you believe that your choices reflect the prayer “that your love be as sweet to God as his love is to you”?

~~Richard