What Do You Love?

What do you love? This is the one question that cuts through all the religiosity in our lives.

Augustine, in his Homilies on the First Epistle of John strikes at the heart of our question when he notes, "such is each one as is his love."We are defined by WHAT we love.

The clarion call of the Scriptures is that we Love God supremely, above all others; in fact, the Scriptures portray God as a jealous God, who demands that we love Him supremely. Listen to these powerful words in Exodus 20:5, "I am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods," wow! a jealous God, that will not tolerate our love  being placed on anything or person above Himself.


What is the greatest command in the Scripture? This was once answered by a young man in the Bible. This young man asked Jesus, "how do I get eternal life?" Jesus then asked him, "what does the law say?" And the young man answered, "we need to love God supremely; and, Love our neighbor as our-self;" Jesus then basically says to the young man, "you got it right!"



 Now, I don't believe any human being has the capacity to love God in the way that God calls us to love Him. Man in his fallen condition can't reach to that height, and will fall short every time. Our heats are evil and wicked, this is how the Old Testament  prophet Jeremiah describes our hearts for us (Jeremiah 17:9).

 To be able to love God the way  He calls us to we need a new birth, cf. John 3:3. The apostle Paul says that we need to be new creatures ( 2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul gives us a marvelous description of what happens when we become apart of God's family, he tells us, "God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Romans 5:5).






Christian ask yourself while you go to God in your quiet time--- am I loving God above everything?---remember, "such is each one as is his love."