How can we love God?
I have seen vistas of incredible beauty from mountaintops. I watched a sunrise like a gigantic, shimmering, pink-orange sherbet rising from the horizon. I have observed the tiny flowers in a mountain meadow resplendent in their variety and precious in their fragility. In scenes of nature that inspire with their beauty I have noted that the feeling produced in me is very like the feeling of love.
The connection between love and beauty goes both ways. I love things because they are beautiful and I find things beautiful because I love them. Does this seem like a chicken and egg conundrum? There is a beginning, a root, which this growth of love springs from. 1John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” And verse 19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” He found us beautiful, even in our sin, and loved us. We find Him beautiful and love Him in return.
When something is beautiful it holds our attention. We automatically spend time and concentration on it. The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119. Every one of those one hundred and seventy six verses speaks to the value and beauty of God’s Word. The author of the Psalm, King David, found beauty that captivated his attention in the Bible.
With some things of beauty, like a painting or a symphony, they have a limited scope or duration and once they are seen or heard they are no longer as captivating. Unlike these things, God is limitless in dimension and duration and can captivate our souls completely and eternally. Our love for God can grow without ever reaching a border so the sense of immense love that is very incomplete is a true and natural sense of our love towards God.
When you love someone it is easy to be interested in what they are interested in. We love God by showing interest in what He is interested in. God’s great work and abiding interest is the redemption of the world. As we love Him we participate in His work. He died for you so love Him by taking care of yourself. He died for the people around you so love Him by caring for them. He created the world so we love Him by taking care of our world.
God loved us first and calls us to love Him in return. As we spend time with Him by reading the Bible and in prayer we grow in our love for Him. As we learn to love Him so we learn to love what He loves, which is, the whole world.
brotherpayne 