How to Show Love to God
Today’s Scripture: 1 John 2:3-6
Key Verse: 1 John 2:5
But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love Him. That is how we know we are living in Him.
As believers, we talk a lot about our love for God. The majority of the contemporary songs we sing are about our love for God. How many sermons have you listened to about the love of God or our love for God? Jesus’s words about loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves is a theme that most of us have heard over and over.
Our Key Verse for today summarizes love for God to a simple statement: if we learn and live God’s Word in our lifestyles, we show our complete love for God.
No matter how many songs we sing, or how many church services we attend, or how many prayers we send up, if we are not learning and living God’s Word then we do not love God in the way God wants to us to love Him. When will we learn that God is not asking us for our sentimental feelings and our emotional outpourings while singing our songs? That kind of love is useless if we are not learning and living God’s Word everyday of our lives.
Are you learning God’s Word? If the authorities in this world banned all the printed Bibles, how much of God’s word would you know?
What does your daily routine look like, as far as reading God’s Word?
I think it is even more important to ask yourself “why” you read the Bible.
Do you look forward to your designated time to read the Bible (assuming you have a designated time)? Do you read the Bible to learn or to fulfill an obligation that you feel? Is reading the Bible a time for you to learn more about how to live like Jesus or an exercise to prevent guilty feelings?
I hope you know that ignorance of the Bible is not an adequate reason for you to justify sinful behavior. When God judges us, someday, He will know whether your bad behavior was a result of willful neglect of God’s Word. In simple terms, here is the goal in learning God’s Word: “Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:6).
I hope these words help shape your style of reading the Bible. In other words, if you don’t take notes, should you? If you are determined to read one chapter a day, does that allow you time to evaluate what you have read and how to incorporate it into your life? Are you using a version of the Bible that is easily understood? Do you whisper a pray before you read, asking God to reveal His truth to your personally?
Never forget the goal of your Bible reading: to learn about and then to live like Jesus, as much as humanly possible.
Father, remind me often to read the Bible thoughtfully so I can learn more about imitating Jesus in my life. It is in Jesus’s Name I pray, amen.