To know God you must love God; to love God you must know God

Upon a certain occasion, Jesus was asked, “Which is the greatest commandment?”  To that he replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind,” (Matthew 22:37, Modern English Version).

My intention is not to examine the hidden riches of this verse in this posting, but to address only the words, “You shall love the Lord your God” My concern is that each of us who are in a covenant relation with the Lord Jesus Christ, one who knows God, is obligated to love the Lord our God with all the energy we can muster in all the ways we can. And that’s a tall order. The question must then be asked:

HOW DO I LOVE THE LORD WITH ALL MY HEART?

Some years ago a deacon friend and I were going door-to-door to talk to people about Jesus Christ. Knocking on a door, we were greeted by a young man in military service. We told him we were there to talk to him about his need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He told us he was a Christian. We asked him if he had found a church to worship with. He told us he hadn’t even looked for one and wasn’t all that interested in doing so. Do you read your Bible? He answered in the same manner. What is your prayer life like? He didn’t have one.

We then asked him if he was married. No, he wasn’t married. Do you have a girlfriend? At that, he got a little more excited, and started telling us about her. She seemed to be a nice young lady and we were happy for him. Are you looking to get married someday? He responded in the affirmative, so I asked him, “What would your girlfriend do if you treated her like you treat Jesus?

How would your wife, husband, child, or friend like it if you treated them like you treat Jesus?

MARRIAGE: A PICTURE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST

Marriage is more than a piece of paper. It is a sacred covenant between one man and one woman to live together in peace, harmony, and love as one person. Additionally, marriage portrays the relationship between Christ, the head of the Church, and his redeemed people, his bride. That is why Bible-believing and Bible-living Christians cannot and must not condone divorce and remarriage unless the other spouse has deceased or remarried. That is why they are so concerned with protecting the sanctity of marriage. It is a matter of reflecting to God the pure and intimate love he has for us.

Unfortunately, many Christian marriages fall short of the ideal. Marriage counselors often advise couples, especially the man, to go back to when they first met and do the things that made the other partner love them and respond kindly to them.

Do you remember those days of courtship and early marriage? I remember when I met my first wife, Mary. She lived in the San Francisco Bay area, and I had recently arrived from New York. She was frightened by my driving. She didn’t like my humor. She didn’t like me. But something about her attracted me to her, so I set out to win her hand. I wanted her to like me. I would ask her friends about her and I would ask her, as well. I learned what her favorite colors were, that she was buying a Ford Mustang from her brother, was highly allergic to coconut and bananas, where she worked, and that she had worked at the local shipyard, etc. So what did I do? I immediately went out and bought her a sack of shredded coconut and a bunch of bananas. NO! Why? Because my little bit of love for her was growing and I wanted to please her.

Once you are married, you have to keep doing the things that got you there. Marriage takes work. It also takes sacrifice. It often requires you to put your partner’s interests before your own. You have to keep courting your spouse and doing nice things for them, surprising them from time to time with unexpected tokens of your love. Failure in this area will destroy your marriage. This same line of thinking also applies to your relationship with God.

Marriage is more than marrying a six-pack or a pretty face. Marriage is to an entire person, a whole person.  What we see when we first cast our eyes on our future life partner can be both pleasant and deceptive. “Pretty is as pretty does” has been repeated innumerable times since Chaucer first penned it more than a thousand years ago. Sadly, some have learned that the hard way. It takes more than physical attraction to make a marriage.

Some people approach Christianity like those that have rushed into a hasty marriage. They may see the beauty in Jesus Christ, recognizing him as a good man and a miracle worker. Others see him as their ticket out of Hell. But they don’t know him beyond that. These often fall away or to maintain the analogy, get a separation or divorce from God.

The Bible tells Christian men, “Husbands, love your wives,” (Ephesians 5:25, Colossians 3:19). Many men don’t know how to do that. Women should also love their husbands, although the Bible does not command them to do so. See Titus 2:4. Had I been married in my early days of knowing God, I would have been among those who did not know how to love their wives. I did not even know how to love God.

Before I came to faith in Christ, I was a hateful man. I hated just about everything in general. Among the things I hated were myself and God. That did not change right away. But, in the process of time, I was drawn to attend the Second Baptist Church of North Stonington, Connecticut. A new pastor had recently been installed. His sermon that morning had to do with our loving others. On my way out the door, I stopped and said to him, “I don’t know what you mean by ‘love.’”  He invited me to dinner during the week and talked afterward. During that meeting he said something to me that I thought was utterly stupid: “To love you must practice love” adding, “And that’s all the advice I am going to give you.”

It turned out to be excellent advice. It required I search the Scriptures to learn what he meant. I had no mentor to direct my search, so I started reading the Bible. Eventually, I lighted upon the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. I learned that love is more than an attitude or a feeling, that it is an action. Some of the things that love does are expressed positively: Love is kind. Other characteristics are expressed negatively: Love is not arrogant or rude. “To love you must practice love,” the pastor had said. I resolved to become a loving person. God then sent some of the nastiest people my way so I could get lots of practice. Slowly, very slowly, and to my surprise, I came to love some of those people.  The change came because to love these people I had to get to know them.

LOVING GOD

In getting to know God we must also practice loving God. We must take the time to develop a relationship with God that goes far deeper than a casual relationship. How can you trust God if you don’t know him? How can you live by faith if you don’t know God?  Some seek to know God’s “perfect will,” yet you haven’t got to know God well enough to accept it. If God’s perfect will is that you be thrown into the proverbial lions’ den, do you know God well enough to say, “Your will be done”? The love God wants from you is your implicit and total trust in him. Your responsibility is to respond in a godly way to what you know.

The love God wants from you is not affection, but obedience to his revealed will. Some may object to or question this. 1 John 5:2 tells us, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments,”  (RSV). Even as this passage connects loving God with obedience to God so does Deuteronomy 30:19,20 when it says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, ²⁰ loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him.” In order, then, to love God, we must know him.

Again, that is seen in the marriage parallel. We show our spouses that we love them when, as new light reveals their likes and dislikes, we do what pleases them. We train our children to respond in like manner: to call home if they’re going to be late or detained, to pick up after themselves, and numerous other things. As we please our spouses, their love for us is flamed, as is our love for them. All of this requires work. It has to be mindful. Love for our spouse grows intentionally. Love for God also grows intentionally. It doesn’t just happen.

Is your relationship with God so-so? Here is the place to start to revive it. You must fan the spark of your love until it bursts forth in full flame, providing both light and heat.

I once rented a house with a wood cook stove in the kitchen. The landlord instructed me to not light a fire in it because it would fill the house with smoke. Because I didn’t want to be homeless, I complied for a couple of years. Then, after I had become friends with him and developed some trust, I decided to see if I could get it working properly.

The stove pipe had several ninety-degree turns before entering the chimney and another 20 feet before it was released above the house into the atmosphere. For the six years I had lived in the mountains of northern California I had heated my house with a woodstove. That experience taught me, when lighting a fire, to start small and slowly. I would use red cedar and sawdust to get the first flame. Then I would add more kindling, being careful to not extinguish the fire or cause a smoke-filled room to suddenly materialize. You see, the chimney is filled with cold air. That column of air is heavier than the air in the wood stove. By adding too much wood too quickly, the cold air overcomes the hot air and fills the house with smoke. Start slowly and gradually warm that column of air until you can safely get a roaring fire going.

Sometimes our approach to solving the problems of our Christian maturity (or lack of it) is like starting a fire in a woodstove without allowing it to come slowly to temperature. Take time to get a good start.

When I was in the Navy I had gone through a period of several years in which my relationship with Jesus Christ had suffered severely. Due to an encounter with God, which I shall not relate here, I felt compelled to get back into fellowship with him. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know which way to turn. All I knew was that I needed to return to my “first love.” (Revelation 2:4 KJV). The first thing I did was to start reading the Bible and praying again. I did nothing else. It was not long before I read Isaiah 40:31.

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

At the time, I was the Leading Petty Officer of the Deck Division and the Torpedo division on my ship. Collateral duties included being the ship’s librarian, career counselor, educational officer, and postal officer. I was also the Section Leader (the senior enlisted man responsible for the smooth operation of a watch section) on a 3-section rotation. I worked from 7 A.M. until 2 A.M. six days a week. I was burning the candle at both ends and had no hope of relief. This verse held out hope. But I didn’t know God well. I certainly didn’t know God well enough to take this promise at face value. So, I decided to put God to the test. I put God first. He was on trial. I dared to think if I honored God by waiting on him and putting what I read into obedient action, that he would unburden me of some of my duties. And he did!

I knew God wanted me to live out my faith in front of my shipmates. I knew I should vocalize my allegiance to God. I also knew if I opened my mouth, I would bring discredit on God because of my lengthy lapse in following him. For several years I had been known as a sailor, not a saint. So I told God I would not say a word to anyone until God gave me the go-ahead. Some months passed and I said nothing to anyone. But, one day my right-hand man came into my office and said, “You know all about God — tell me something.” That was my go-ahead. I made slow progress, but it was progress. I was — I should say God was —building my fire slowly. And, yes, a huge burden was lifted when I was relieved of my librarian duties. The rest of the jobs stayed with me until my tour on that ship ended about 1 1/2 years later.

Have you claimed the promise of Isaiah 40:31 for yourself? Do it. Your life will change and so will your love for your Savior and your God.

(To Be Continued)