Here is the message I had planned to share this morning before the migraine monster caught up to me. What is Loving God and what Does He Require? Deuteronomy 10:12,13 “So now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you? Only to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and to keep the commandments of the Lord your god and His decrees that I am commanding you today, for your own well- being.” What does it mean to love God with all your heart? Our heart per se holds our emotional allegiance. When we love with all of our heart, there is no room to love another to that degree. To love God with all our soul is to place all earthly desires aside and place the Holy desires of God in their place. Our soul wants to indulge in human affairs, but it is the will of God that we reign in our soul, for our own good and instead indulge ourselves in the desires and affairs of God. To love God with all of our mind is to lend our thoughts to the thoughts of God. What is he thinking about? According to scripture he thinks on things that are holy and pure, things that are lovely and good. He thinks about souls that are lost and how much he wants each of them to know Him, to love Him. To love God is to be in a Covenant relationship with Him, His Son and His Holy Spirit. To be in a Covenant relationship means we immerse ourselves in His ways, His thoughts, words, desires and His Law. His end of the covenant relationship is that when we do this He will “write these on our hearts and in our minds” never to be lost or forgotten. A Covenant relationship with God is conditional, there are expectations on both ends. God expects that we will seek Him only, that we will not indulge ourselves in earthly pleasures, but instead fix our eyes on the life to come. He expects that we will not try to blend in with the unsaved, but instead that we will stand out, that we will be peculiar and different to the mainstream world. He expects that we will respect the boundaries He has placed on us and around us, the line we must not cross in life. He expects that we will love Him and trust Him enough that we are willing to give up our lives for Him at any moment. He expects that our desires will be the same ones that he has, finding the lost and directing them to Him, to settle themselves with Him and have their eternal destiny secured. In return, we want to know Him more and we want to be sure that we are true members of His family. That we are family with Him eternally. God brings upon us a love for Him we could never conceive of in the natural realm. It’s almost like being “lovesick”, we think about Him all day, everyday. It becomes a very natural desire to want to make God happy. The idea that an action of mine could bring a smile to the face of God thrills me beyond words! In this place we are spiritually able to sense His immense love for us individually and as a people of God. Also, even though the world might see the Laws of God as restrictive, we are actually so incredibly free. We are free to live a holy life, one without deceit or deception, one without lies. We are free to think and live a clean and sober life. To find joy in the simple and the divine. I remember a few years back a person from one of our churches took me out to lunch. She asked me “in your life, what person’s approval do you seek most?” I responded, “I do not seek the approval of any human”, I only seek the approval of God”. I remember the shock on her face and I felt so sad for her. She was not in love with God, she was “in love” with giving the appearance she was. Even though she had been a member of that Church for decades, long before Wayne and I ever arrived, she was not truly in covenant with God. She was basing her actions and her thoughts on a worldly standard that had nothing to do with the heart desires of God. This is the place and time to determine if you are in a covenant relationship with God or in something less. Something less won’t cut it, God wants you to be as “in love” with Him as He is with you. Rev. Kasey Streichert Burt 10-27-2013 Hebrews 8:10 Matthew 22:37 Jeremiah 31:33 Psalm 119:1-173
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 18:40:21 +0000
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