Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone who said that they recommended their church to all their friends. The selling point and why they liked it was because the service was short. One hour and they are out for the day. No lingering around for several hours or spending all day at church.
The first thing that came to mind was what, if anything, about that attitude reflects a heart that loves the Lord?
God tells us that we are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.
I started to think about when I fell in love. I wanted to spend as much time with Chris as possible. I wanted to know him more and more. I wanted to know what he thought about, what he felt, what he liked and disliked. I wanted to know his heart. There weren’t enough hours in the day or enough days in the week to spend time together. Our phone calls were so long that we both had some pretty hefty cell phone bills.
Shouldn’t loving God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength look like something akin to being in love with a person. Wanting to spend a much time as possible with them…getting to know their thoughts and heart.
With God…we get to know Him more through the study of His word. We draw closer to Him through prayer.
Would any of our relationships thrive and grow if we only invested one hour a week? Would the person that we say we love take offense and doubt our love if we were anxious to leave after an hour and get on with our day? Would they think that we value and prize them if we only spent an hour a week with them?
Of course not! May we not kid ourselves thinking that we have a good, deep, vital, thriving relationship with God when we don’t desire to spend time with God and don’t make a concerted effort to do so.
May we indeed be known by our great love and passion for God. May we hunger and thirst to know His word. May we desire to communicate with Him through prayer. May our relationship be alive and growing. May our love be evident to all because we are abiding in Christ Jesus and obey Him.
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live. - Luke 10:25-28
By Susan Bunts Wachtel
April 9, 2010
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