How to grow in love for God

If you read my post yesterday, you know the gist of God’s command  to his human creatures–to commit ourselves to Him in all of our thinking, be willing to die for Him, and to give over all of our money and material goods to Him.

It appears impossible.  And it is,  apart from the work of God’s Spirit in us. Yet we are told in the rest of Scripture that we are to grow in this love, on a regular basis.  But how in the world?  Especially when we already feel defeated?  When, after reading yesterdays’s post, we are overwhelmed by our lack of love for God?

Help is on the way!  In the very next verse!  It provides a solution for our dilemma.  In short, it says that if we get Scripture into our minds on a regular basis, we will find–almost unconsciously–that our lives will start moving in the direction of that commitment that God wants from us.

verse 6: V’hayu had’varim ha’eileh asher anokhi m’tzav’kha hayom al l’vavekha. And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart.

The key is to remember that the Hebrew word for heart means something closer to “mind.”  Scripture tells us here to get “these words” that Moses is telling us–that refer to his speech to Israel in Deuteronomy, but more generally for all of God’s Word–to get these words into our minds.

This can mean memorizing Scripture, or simply reading a bit each day and chewing on it.  This means meditation, which is visualizing that little bit and thinking about the implications and applications of it.  Then asking God to help us walk out that bit in our lives.  All of these activities are ways to let God’s words “be in our hearts.”

The promise is that as we get the words of Scripture in our minds on a regular basis, we shall be loving, and growing in our love for, God.