The article addresses the nature of God, but focuses on the fact that we need to learn to love this God\u2014which is surely a good way for us to round off this series.<\/p>\n
For more posts on the T4G Statement<\/em>, Articles 1-4 see Ten Conclusions About Expository Preaching<\/a>, and for more on Articles 5 and 6, see the following posts:<\/p>\n <\/p><\/span><\/div>\n As we learn more about God\u2014His glory, His perfection, and His existence as the Trinity\u2014I believe our love for Him will grow. We can trace throughout the Bible the unique characteristics of God, and see how Jesus shares every one of these. It is said of Jesus that \u201c<\/span>in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily<\/span><\/a>\u201d (Colossians 2:9). <\/span><\/a>He is the revelation of God to us. The more we learn of Him, the more we love Him.<\/span><\/p>\n We must understand God in all his transcendence and immanence. As <\/span>the book of Exodus<\/span><\/a> describes God: \u201cThe Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty\u201d (Exodus 34:6-7). <\/span><\/a>Many Christians emphasize one or the other of these aspects. It is only as we understand that God is both loving and holy, near to us yet separate from us, that we will learn to love Him for <\/span>who He is<\/span><\/a>. The following table will help you to allow the Scriptures to shape your understanding of God and the way that Jesus shares all of His attributes:<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n \nGOD EXISTS ETERNALLY<\/span> GOD IS LOVE GOD IS THE CREATOR GOD IS OMNISCIENT \u2013 HE KNOWS EVERYTHING GOD KNOWS THE FUTURE<\/span><\/strong> GOD IS NOT BOUND BY TIME GOD IS UNCHANGEABLE GOD IS WISE GOD IS TRUTH GOD IS OMNIPRESENT \u2013 HE IS EVERYWHERE<\/span><\/strong> GOD IS OMNIPOTENT \u2013 HE IS ALL POWERFUL<\/span><\/strong> GOD IS UNCONTAINABLE<\/span><\/strong> GOD IS LIGHT<\/span><\/strong> GOD IS SPIRIT GOD IS HOLY\n
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In the light of eternity, we are all beginners in the task of learning to love God. It is the most significant challenge faced by the Christian. When asked what is the greatest commandment, Jesus said, \u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind\u201d It is a measure of our spiritual weakness that we see this challenge as somehow less critical than the challenge to live morally.<\/span>
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\nHow can I love someone I have never seen? We may experience a form of \u201clove\u201d for a character we read about in a book or see in a movie, but is that anything like the love we feel for someone we actually know? Is our love for God just a form of admiration that we might feel for a hero in a novel or the long-deceased subject of a biography. God is not the long-dead subject of a book. He is a living, breathing Person. How then can we learn to love Him as a real person?<\/span>
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\nI am convinced that the way we learn how to love God is to think of our relationship with Him in the same way we do with people we can physically see. God wants us to be His friends and to enjoy loving the One who is the most worthy of our love. We grow in our love for God in the same way we grow in our love for anyone else. In this article I will show you ways in which we build our relationships with other people and then apply them to how we can learn to love God Himself.<\/span>
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\nLove Goes Beyond Mere Feelings<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nThe first thing to consider is, what does love actually mean? Many people think that love is simply an emotional feeling \u2014 like the way you feel when your knees go weak when you meet that someone of the opposite sex for the first time. Too often songs and sermons tell Christians to relate to God as if He were their heavenly boyfriend. Not surprisingly, that picture is frequently not very appealing to men. As Mark Driscoll says, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to worship someone you can beat up.\u201d We must learn to love the real Jesus\u2014not a weak imitation.<\/span>
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\nThe contemporary concept of love is far from the biblical one. It is dangerous to think of love in merely emotional terms: Love is a \u201cdoing word,\u201d a word full of action. It requires choices\u2014hard choices sometimes. Love is about sacrifice, about faithfulness. It requires commitment. It doesn\u2019t always feel so good, and sometimes may even be very painful. As Daniel Bedingfield sings, \u201c<\/span>Nothing hurts like love, nothing causes your heart so much pain<\/span><\/a>.\u201d Loving God is no different. It, too, will at times be painful.<\/span>
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\nThe first step toward learning to love God is to respond to His love for us. We do this because of what He has done for us: \u201c<\/span>We love because He first loved us<\/span><\/a>\u201d (1 John 4:19). <\/span><\/a>Like any other covenant relationship, we decide to love irrespective of how we feel or, indeed, how it appears to us another person is treating us. The extent of true love for someone else is not measured by how we feel about him when everything is going well. Satan\u2019s words <\/span><\/a>could as easily have read, \u201c<\/span>Does Job love God for nothing?<\/span><\/a>\u201d (Job 1). <\/span><\/a>Our challenge is to love even when we feel things are not going well \u2014 to love from the core of ourselves even when we feel despair attempting to take hold.<\/span>
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\nWhat is love? Love is a deep-seated orientation of your life towards someone else. It involves your whole being. It usually involves deciding to put the needs of another person before your own. Just ask any parent. Our relationship with God is no different, except that He doesn\u2019t have any needs\u2014we are needy. We come to God determined to centre our lives around Him, and to put ourselves in the position of needy recipients of His grace. He calls us to serve Him and worship Him, but it is not because He is deficient in any way. We come to God as receivers, not givers. We love God as little children love their parents, and serve Him in the same way a good mother will ask her child to help her in the kitchen so the child will learn and so they can be together.<\/span>
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\nLove Requires Spending Time Together<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nThere are no shortcuts to loving someone. Love demands interaction and communication, and these require an investment of time. Imagine a friend who comes to you complaining about his girlfriend. He explains that their relationship just doesn\u2019t seem to be going anywhere. You ask him how long they have been going out, and what their conversations are like. Your friend replies, \u201cOh, we don\u2019t actually go out and talk with each other!\u201d Many Christians spend little or no time with God and then wonder why they are not growing in their relationship with Him.<\/span>
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\nWhat does spending time with God look like? Clearly one of the most important ways we spend time with God is in prayer. But how do we pray in such a way that we actually feel that we are in the presence of God \u2014 that we are in a real conversation with Him? Prayer must not be merely reciting a shopping list to God. Instead of rushing to ask Him to do things for us, we start by praising Him for who He is and thanking Him for what He has done for us. As we do this and experience clear answers to prayer, just as in any relationship, more of a sense of a shared history with God will emerge and love will deepen. The longer we know Him and the more we remember how He has helped us and answered our prayers, the more we will love Him. But prayer is not only about setting aside special periods of time to be with God. It\u2019s that sense of <\/span>continually communing with Him in our daily routine<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/a>It is critical that we also spend time with God in repentance and receiving forgiveness. Jesus said that <\/span>those <\/span>who are forgiven much will love much<\/span><\/a> (Luke 7:49).<\/span>
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\nLove Requires a Deep Knowledge and Understanding of the Other Person<\/span><\/em><\/strong>
\nThere is no substitute for getting to know and understand God by reading the Bible. We must grow in the biblical knowledge of who God is and what He is like. Many Christians have only a vague idea of the character of God and are unable to identify where the Bible teaches what we assume about Him. To grow in our love for God, the Bible must shape our beliefs about God. I believe it is important that we know why we believe what we do, and that we do not merely parrot theories taught by others.<\/span>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/thumb\/1\/1e\/C.s.lewis3.JPG\/200px-C.s.lewis3.JPG\")
<\/a>Do we merely \u201cassume\u201d certain truths about God? Unfortunately, not all of these can be assumed these days. Where C. S. Lewis was able to say, for example, \u201cEveryone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow\u201d (<\/span>Mere Christianity<\/span><\/em><\/a>), we can no longer assert it as something generally understood by our culture. If we compromise on these truths and we end up with a God who doesn\u2019t know everything or who isn\u2019t all-powerful, our ability to love such a weakened God is severely diminished.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/em><\/span><\/strong> Psalm 90:2; Revelation 1:8<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/em><\/span> <\/span><\/strong>John 1:1-5; John 17:5; Revelation 22:13<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> 1 John 4:8<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 17:24<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/em><\/span><\/strong> Romans 11:36; Psalm 104:24; Acts 17:24-25; Ephesians 3:10<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Colossians 1:15-17<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> 1 John 3:20; Hebrews 4:13; Psalm 139<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 2:24-25; John 16:30<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGod:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Isaiah 46:9-11<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 13:19<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> 2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4; Exodus 3:14<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 8:58-59<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Malachi 3:6<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Hebrews 13:8<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Romans 16:27; Psalm 147:5<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> 1 Corinthians 1:24<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/strong>God:<\/span><\/em> <\/strong><\/span>Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 14:6<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGod:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Psalms 139:7-10; Jeremiah 23:24<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Matthew 18:20<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGod:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Jeremiah 32:17; Ephesians 3:20<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Mark 4:41<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGod:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> 1 Kings 8:27<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Matthew 17:2-6<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGod:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> 1 John 1:5<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 8:12<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 4:24<\/a>
\nJesus:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> John 1:14<\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span>God:<\/span><\/em><\/strong> Psalm 99:9<\/a>