How do we show God we love Him? Is it through prayer? Is it when we read the Bible every day? Or is it something more?

Jesus said, “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”

There’s our answer: accept His commandments and obey them.

All the Big Ten which Jesus boiled down into Two: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength AND love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, He then gave another: Go into all the world and make disciples.

Here’s what I see.
1.) We’re to love God with everything we are. We’re to have Him foremost in our minds, our hearts stayed on Him, our souls feasting on Him, our strength found in Him.

1A.) We have to love ourselves. We have to recognize that God loves us enough to die for us and that we are worth loving. We have to choose to see ourselves the way God sees us. As believers, we have traded our sin for Christ’s righteousness. We are joint-heirs with the Savior! We are dearly loved by Him, so we must love us, too. To do differently would be contrary to His way, not to mention that if we’re to love others as ourselves, it’s a must-do. Too often we loathe ourselves which makes it extremely difficult to love others well.

2.) We are to love others. We’re to care for their needs as if they are our own. We’re to help them as though they were us. We’re to encourage and uplift them as though we were the ones in need of the intentional cheer.

3.) In loving others, we want them to know the Lord in salvation, so we tell them about Him, about all He has rescued us from, about His love for them.

When we do these things, accepting them into our lives as mandates from God Himself, doing what He says, we are revealing to God, ourselves and others that we truly love the Lord.

Now, don’t get messed up with the second part of the verse, please. God loves all mankind. All. Every person. What this verse is saying is that those who really love Christ through their obedience will have the opportunity to experience God, to know His presence.

It’s like this: you love your friends, your community, but you love your family in a more intimate way. You’re not about to cuddle and tickle the neighbor across the street like you do your child.

Let’s get to work on this accepting and obeying so we can prove to God and others our true love for Him. Let’s get real and let our love for Him flow through us and over onto others.

Coffee, Bible, Journal.