It is very important to know what God wants from us and to live accordingly. God wants us to love Him wholeheartedly. Shared love is not at all acceptable to God. We are allowed to love others only through God. It is not only that God wants us to love Him wholeheartedly but He tests it time to time. All temptations that God allows in our lives are basically testing our love towards God. This testing happens in our life very frequently and many a time we do not even know about it.
1. Great and foremost commandment (Math. 22:38)
Most of the Old Covenant commandments are external but Jesus raised the standard of those external commandments by asking us keeping them from the heart (Mathew 5:21-28). God commands in Deut. 6:5“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might”. Jesus emphasized this commandment three times in the New Testament (Mathew 22:37, Mark 12: 30, Luke 10:27). This shows us the importance of this unchanging commandment of God. When our love is shared to the world, God is considering it as adultery and enmity towards Him (James 4:7).
2. Jesus wants us to love Him more than everything (John 21:15).
Jesus was with his disciples for many days after His resurrection. All these days He was convincing them that He is alive after His suffering and spoke of the things concerning the kingdom of God (Acts 1:2-3). Even after this convincing ministry of Lord Jesus Christ, Peter and other apostles went backsliding and proved their fruitlessness even in fishing. But the love of Jesus was following them all the way and brought them back to the care of Jesus even in that backslidden condition. In John 21:15-17 we see that Jesus asked three times repeatedly to Peter “Do you love me?” .This repeated question brought Peter in to the reality and he surrendered to the Lord. This is showing us that all time our Lord wants our love for Him more than all other things. Each time when Peter admits his love towards Him, Jesus is giving him the responsibility to take care of His sheep.
3. Loving God means keeps His commandments out of joy(John 14:21).
Everyone will say that they love God. But Jesus made it very clear that how we can know that we really love Him. If we are not keen about this then we will deceive ourselves in this area. “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (John 14:21). Jesus is double confirming this truth by repeating the same immediately. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23).
4 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love (John 15:9).
This is a great truth and great encouragement and security for all the disciples. Jesus loved us exactly in the same way Father loved Jesus. Primarily Satan questions God’s love for us in every temptation. It is true that Jesus loved us exactly like His Father loved Him. But we have the responsibility and great scope to abide in His love. Only when we abide in His love, we experience His love and it becomes a reality for us. So if we are not abiding in God’s love, God’s love will be like a very beautiful picture in front of a blind man.
5. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.(John 15:10).
The secret to abide in God’s love is to keep His commandments. Jesus is encouraging us by saying that He abides in His Father’s love by keeping His commandments. So this is the only, secured way to abide in God love.
6. “if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us ( 1 John 4:12).
1John 4:7-12 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.8The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is Perfected in us.
7. Keep commandments of God and love His children (1 John 5: 1-2)
1 John 5:1-3Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 3For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
May God help all of us to love Him wholeheartedly.
