Practical love for God

Call to Prayer

Title: Practical love for God

By: Simon Maina Nuhu

Date: 23.02.2024

´If ye love me, keep my commandments´. John 14:15

Love has so many definitions by people. Today, we witness so many manifestations by people as demonstration of love. Carnal and selfish men define love according to their own narrow minded ego, driven mainly by lust. They define love in a superficial and emotional point of view, in fact, they see love as an expression of ones sensual perspective. In today´s world, men categorise love into several types but the major ones are three; Philia, Eros and Agape. Among these three, only Agape is pure and selfless which corroborates with what Christ actually did on the cross for all mankind to be redeemed back to God.

As believers, we are to follow God´s approved definition of love, which Jesus emphasis in John 15:13, wherewith is genuine and sacrificial. Since God had demonstrated  His love to us-ward, He then mandated all believers to adhere strictly to it in order to walk in His righteousness in Christ Jesus. Now, it is crucial for us to understand that, loving God back has to be in His own way and by His own terms if at all we want to get His appraisal. How do we love Him back? well, that is the question that prompted today´s message. Many times we tend to express our love to God with a genuine heart and hunger but in a wrong way, or deliberately offering a poor service to Him.

We couple of times profess our love to Him but when this claim is evaluated with the written word of the Scripture, we see that our claim seems opposite or suffers discrepancy. Some of the wrong things we do is that we assume spending long time in His presence in prayer, worship and sermons equate to loving Him. Even though they are part of demonstrating our love to Him but, many times what we do after spending time with Him are really terrible! We curse people, we backbite, we fornicate, we bear false witness, we condemn and judge people etc. To love God practically is to obey His commandments (John 14:15).

So, what are the commandments given by Jesus? …..that ye should love one another (John 13:34). If we practically and wholeheartedly obey this command, we are responding perfectly.  Obeying it simply means bearing the burdens of one another, doing good to all men, (Galatians 6:2, 10). Jesus Christ Himself highlighted that the best way to love Him back is by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners, taking care of strangers (Matthew 25:33-40)

Beloved brethren, let us therefore put into practise the obedience to the new command given to us, that we may partake in His perfection and be found diligent in all things

Prayer point:

Let´s thank God for the message, and also ask Him to give us the ability to obey His commandments.