How much does God love you? Off the top of our heads, we can answer that with truths like: He loves us enough to send His only Son to die for us, He offers forgiveness each and every day, He places things and people in our lives that bring us joy, and He gave us His word and constant access to Him. We absolutely deserve none of that, yet the Bible tells us several times that God delights in us (Zephaniah 3:17, Psalm 37:23)! To answer my question, He has a practically insane, overwhelming, mind boggling, soul satisfying amount of love for you.
What would it look like if we showed that much love back to Him? I don't know about you, but the amount of love I have for God is not always accurately reflected in my actions. In Romans 7:15, Paul talks about his similar struggle with this by declaring "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do". It's pretty frustrating, isn't it? We each sin every single day and choose ourselves over His perfect love. Wouldn't it be great if we could just stop sinning and really show Him how much we love Him every single moment?
We will obviously be able to do that for the rest of eternity once we go to heaven, but what about right now? While we are on earth, as sinful humans, how can we even possibly try to show Him the love we have for Him? I think really truly trying to do that would completely flip our lives upside down. What if you tried to love God as much as He loves you today, what would that look like? Matthew 22:37 boldly tells us that it will require every bit of us; our heart soul and mind. In order to love Him this completely like He does for us, we would have to be willing to give Him absolutely everything even if He did not give us anything in return. We would have to be focused on Him every single moment of every single day. We would have to make decisions based on how it would effect Him and do so many things to bring Him joy and remind Him of our love throughout each and every day. This will take our time, our attention, our energy, our passion, and demand priority in our lives.
This is what our love for Him should look like. It should be radical, daring, contagious, consuming, and impossible to ignore. We should not be able to convince people we do not love Jesus Christ, because our actions should scream that fact every single second. What would the world look like if you and I loved God the way He loved us? That is what a relationship with Him is supposed to be.
I want to try something this week, and I am challenging you to try it with me. I am going to try to, with every breath, love God as much as He loves me. Of course we are humans and we will make mistakes, but each breath is a new chance to relentlessly proclaim our love for Him and that is how I want to live my life. Will you join me?
