I will confess that I am one who has dealt with unbelief, I have over and over again had to be comforted by The Holy Spirit. He has over and over again reminded me of the faithfulness of the word of God. As it is written the Word of God always bring back fruit to The LORD. I have meditated over and over again on how the scriptures have over and over again been fulfilled in the sight of men. Prophecy being fulfilled in its due time, even in the very recent past we have seen the mass return of the children of Israel back to the land of their fore-fathers [this has been done in their unbelief, so that more prophecies may be fulfilled.] I will confess that it is the testimony of the scripture’s in particular the testimony of Jesus Christ, that according to the work of The Holy Spirit in me that by the grace of God continued to maintain my faith in The Lord. As such I can confidently confess that it is God alone that has allowed me to continue in the walk of faith. I’m confident that God who has been gracious to me will continue to keep me in his Grace according to his Loving Kindness which endures forever. Unbelief is evil, in fact is wavering and doubtfulness. This is nothing to be proud of, it is something to utterly avoid by simply believing in The True and Living God. I can confess that it is God alone and not man, who by His mercy has allowed me to walk in His ways by Faith! The truth is this, there is absolutely no reason to doubt God. To be saved one must hear the Gospel, to live for Him one must know His ways. If we know His ways we know of his acts, if we know of his acts how can we doubt Him? My doubt was a result of my lack of True Love for God. I loved Him, but not as I should have. I adored Him but I did not completely treasure my Saviour. This is what this book is about.
The command to Love God
The Lord Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is “Thou shalt Love The LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” Let us examine for a time the words of this commandment. The key action word here is Love. As Paul says the whole Law is fulfilled in that word “Love.” We can see then that the Love the commandment talks of is to be directed to a person, namely The LORD. This Glorious God, we are told is to be Loved. This takes us to the next part of our analysis of this commandment, who is the LORD? The sh’ma tells us that The LORD is One. The word used for one is echad denoting a sort of plurality in oness. The sh’ma [Deuteronomy 6:4-5] apart from giving the commandment to Love the LORD with all your heart, soul, mind and strength also tell us that The LORD our God is one LORD. The text reads (Deuteronomy 6:4-5):
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”
We are told that The LORD is echad/one LORD. Why is this important in understanding the triune nature of our God and how we are to love Him in his Holy and Exalted uniqueness? Well for one thing if we are love God we ought to Love Him in the fullness of His totality. We should Love the Triune God for He is One! There is One God not three, Three in person One in Being.[1] So we are to direct our Love to this Triune and Holy Divine One who is the Only True God, the Living God and our God! There is an intimacy to the way we Love The LORD. He is called our God, we are His. There is a closeness that is alluded to here! There exists a relationship! So our Love is a relational one, He loves us and we Love Him. In fact we are told that He loved us first (if we say we Love him, we must remember that he loved us first [1 John 4:9-19]).
We must now discuss the nature of Love, or rather what it is to Love God. The world has its own definitions of Love, the way the word is used or rather abused one has to ask themselves. “Does the world truly know what love consists of?” The Lord said unto us that to love our neighbors is this “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” He said to love one another as brethren is to do such “Love one another as I have loved you.” And to Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength could be put first descriptively in the following him as well as didactically in how exactly the loving is done. Jesus (who as The Word is part of the Godhead) said to us that He that does not deny himself and take up his cross and follow him is not worthy of Him. This is descriptive of the call to discipleship and its walk which in one of Love, we follow for we Love. But how is this denying of self and carrying of the cross to be done? It is to be done by doing his commandments, abiding in His word so to speak! For in choosing to do His will we reject to do our own will and must die to self daily! This obedience is the Love he talks of. And it produces much fruit! This takes us to the next part of the commandment. That is how much we are to Love the LORD our God and with what we are to Love Him. That is we are to Love him with our all our heart, soul, mind and strength! The whole being of a person is involved in this sort of Love. Previously we had uncircumcised hearts which were hard towards God. But through Messiah we receive a circumcision of the putting off of the flesh, this is done without hands. Our hearts are circumcised and The Torah is written upon these new hearts. This is itself a fulfillment of things the LORD said would happen in the future when talking to Moses and many other prophets. But now because we have a new heart, and our Life is found in God himself we are able to Love in the manner that God commands us to. Not by our own strength, but by The Spirit of God. In subjecting ourselves to The Spirit, we deny ourselves and by His Power are able to Love God with all our hearts by delighting in Him and hiding his word therein, our souls by being completely satisfied in Him, minds by adoring Him and his precepts and keeping them as well as loving Him with all our strength by obeying Him!
This commandment, is really a description of what true worship is all about. It is to be done all day every day in all situations and places! It is done in Spirit and in Truth which is how we are able to Love in the way we are commanded to.We are to love the Father in this way, we are to Love the Son in this way (as Jesus said the Son must be honored as the Father is honored, they are One). We are to Love the Holy Spirit like this! This sort of love not only gives us joy but it pleases Our Lord, God, Creator and Savior! If it could be put in one word that we can all understand without much explanation it would be this, we are to treasure God! We all understand why treasure is “treasured.” It is of immense value! It is no surprise that Jesus thus used a parable of a great pearl to describe how those who find the Kingdom of God are to treasure the find! This is ultimately the God who makes this kingdom so amazing!
Why Love God?
This may come as a shock to many, but in my lack of understanding and in all honesty, in my lack of humility and meekness I once asked. Why should people Love God? Why is He worth Loving? These are silly questions honestly. God is the only God, our maker and the creator of all the heavens and the earth! Look at how amazing his creation is, in light of how we offend him and yet He offers mercy. Why shouldn’t we love Him who has been so patient with us and has shown such marvelous grace even going so far as to give His only Son to die for our sins and raise Him up so that in Him we can be justified!To give us an inheritance together with His Righteous Son, who being Himself God and One with the Father became flesh and endured the cross for us and was raised by the power of the Spirit who even now keeps us and comforts us! How can we not Love such a Loving God? Who has done so much for us even though we are undeserving! The apostle John points this out in 1 John! The Love of God which is something that has been made manifest!
So there is a reciprocal reason to Love God that is very reasonable and just! We love Him in response to all that he has done for us. He has Loved us even though we don’t deserve His Love which endures forever! There exists another reason to Love God.
We Love God because we Fear Him. If the Gospel is ministered to an unbeliever it is doubtful whether one with any knowledge of the Scripture and the Good News itself can preach it without endeavoring to speak on the fierceness of God’s Wrath upon those who are his enemies! His enemies being all who do not belong to His Son, those who have rejected Him or even those who are ignorant of the Gospel and remain in sin! The seriousness of His wrath and the detailed explanation of both what shall take place during that great day of The LORD as well as in hades and then finally in Hell should make any one who takes to heart the seriousness of God’s wrath see their own uncleanliness! It should shake them to fear God and yet treasure Him for His mercy which they being sinners do not deserve and yet receive from Him. Those who understand this will see Grace for what it is, amazing!! The reverence for, the Fear of God is a healthy and important facet to why we should Love God and how we are to love him. For if we love him we will do His Word! He regards those who are humble and tremble at his word!
There is a complete sense to the fact that we love God because of what He has done for us. We previously were dead in sins, and even the most pious of men in the commonwealth of Israel previous to Messiah’s death and resurrection could not truly love God in the way He commanded. Only those few who He chose to have a different spirit in them than there counterparts could even come near to such a love! Example’s are Moses, Joshua, Daniel and Job. They were shown to be faithful under much pressure and thus showed their love and dedication for God! These had different hearts to many of their counterparts. For example when the remnant of Israel returned to their land after the Babylonian exile, many took foreign wives. Ezra the scribe’s response to this was the rending of his garments and grief! He had them divorce them!! You see the difference in spirit that He had in comparison to the rest of many of his nation.
What ever way we choose to look at the reasoning behind why we Love God. We come to understand that we do so as a response to that which He has first shown. Whether we love Him because he is our maker, our provider or healer. We respond to each one of those actions of God. The most important or rather the one which is of greatest value being His giving of the Lord Jesus for our sins and redemption.
The Grand Adoration of God
The Grand Adoration of God. This could easily be summed up in one word. Love. This is to grandly adore God with all we have! We claim God as the apple of our eyes, our hearts desire becomes to please Him! And we have joy in this! For through His Messiah we have been made to be at peace with Him. He has given us The Holy Spirit of Promise and we walk in The Spirit! We are to find complete satisfaction in God, complete contentment in Him. We are to delight in Him! We are to rejoice and praise Him, not only with our words but with our deeds. We cling to Him as a child does his father in the time of trouble!
Psalm 119:2
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart
Psalm 119:9-10
With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Psalm 119:15-16
I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.
I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.
We are to diligently study the scriptures to learn of our God, we are to keep his word hidden in our hearts! We are to abide in His word [that is the word of Messiah]. We are to walk in His ways, to delight in them. We are to follow The Master as previously mentioned. We are to Love Him above all others to such an extent that our love for others seems like hate compared to the Love we have for Him. We Glorify God in this! The chief aim of this sort of living, is to Glorify God in all one does. With one’s inner man and with one’s body [that is one’s flesh]. Such that we glorify God in life or in death!
The second most important commandment of God according to Jesus is similar to the first most important one, it is “love your neighbor as yourself.” And we must also note the new commandment Jesus gave us that is “Love one another as I have Loved you.” These we do ultimately because of the first one. Because we Love God in the manner in which He desires we love our brothers and our neighbors, in fact we even love our enemies and pray for them. Why do we love our neighbors?
We love our neighbors because we would like people around us to treat us in the manner in which we ourselves would like to be treated (we wish to be loved as such we love). Even more importantly if God has been bountifully merciful and gracious to us, who are we being mere men to be be evil towards our fellow man? If God has been long suffering towards men how can we not be long suffering with those around us, especially as we are his servants and seek to act in a manner that glorifies him and shows his character in us. Our Love for others glorifies God who made all and is their judge[ Judgement has been given to the Son of Man]. The love we show to others glorifies God! Let us look at it this way, when we Love we serve God! For we do his commandment! To love an enemy is to deny ourselves the natural instinct to hate them and do evil. We leave all recompense and taking of vengeance to Him who’s wrath is righteous.
To wholly adore and desire God is our aim, to seek Him and delight in Him! There are specifics to how we are to delight in God in a manner that honors Him. We seek to honor God, hedonism is about “me” and what “I” want. Love is reciprocal in nature, it is about what the other party seeks and desires. Love is not selfish in nature. Love is self-less, seeking the good of others. God does want us to delight in Him, he wants us to find our satisfaction in Him. He made us to adore Him, in this we find true joy and through the work of God in Messiah we have peace. This peace we have in Him. In this pursuit of God we Glorify Him, chiefly because we show how Awesome He is. God has loved us, and given us Himself! He gave His Son to redeem us, justify us and give us life. He gave us His Spirit to live in us and guide us and to be sealed in Him. He has given us an inheritance together with Messiah (that is through Messiah), He has made us to be a royal priesthood! Now, considering this great Love that God has shown. To Honor him who is due all Glory, praise and Honor would only be just and right! Consider, how all we can ever give to God is all he has asked from us. To Love YHWH with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The things we suffer in this world, whether it be poverty or persecution are but for a little while and can be used to Glorify God. In which case is there a loss? We have been given the honor to partake in this relationship with the Most High God. If a well known person were to have dinner with us, we would be joyful, but we have been given the honor of an invitation to the Lamb’s wedding feast! We have been brought into a wondrous relationship with God! We have been adopted by Him. Learning his ways, is a means to Glorify Him and be more like our daddy. It is something that should and can not be ignored for in it we learn how to honor God. We learn about the great promises of God through his precepts. His word is everlasting, we are able to stand fast in this world when doubt and all sorts of persecutions and manner of troubles assail us for we can seek comfort in His Word and through His Spirit we are led through all truth and are able to stay unshaken. Being a christian soldier is not about being violent, it is about living for God by His word and through His Spirit! It is about Loving God, to live for God is to love God!
Don’t be robbed of your joy, delight in your God! Serve your Master and Love Him!
A little conclusion
In light of the great promises of God we ought to rejoice in the God we serve! Serve the Lord with fear and trembling. Delight in his precepts and his ways. Keep the Commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus! Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus! Abide in Jesus, those that love Him will keep his commandments.
Resisting temptation builds endurance and patience [James 1]. The resistance has it’s root in the Love of God which we are commanded to have. This resistance is the test of our faith, through which our faith in Messiah is perfected. We are told that we are not tempted of God, but our own lusts carry us away and we find ourselves enticed, these give forth sin and when sin when finished brings forth death! This literally means we fight for our lives. We choose to not love our lives, rather we choose to lose them in pursuit of the Lord whom we love. We live to exalt, magnify and glorify our Lord and Savior. The way we live should show the world how exceedingly glorious or God is, how delightful it is to be his servants!
As such as John the Apostle told us, any one who knows Jesus does not make a habit of sinning! Any one who Loves Jesus will do his commandments, we put to death the misdeeds of the flesh by the Spirit. This fight against sin and the misdeeds of the flesh out of the Love of God greatly Glorifies God as it is out of this Love that we seek to honor and please Him in the way we live. We give our bodies as a living sacrifice to God which is good and just, this we do because God is worthy of all praise and honor.
Grace and Peace
*Please read and muse on John 14-16 as well as James 1 and Peter 1. Fear God and tremble at his Word, draw nigh to Him and he will draw nigh unto you, seek him with your whole heart! Refuse to listen to pride and unbelief, choose to hearken unto Him and cleave to Him wholeheartedly.
[1] We are told by the Apostle John that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. We also know that for Messiah to be God he would have to have always existed with God and have to be One with Him. Jesus both confirmed this in his statement “I and the Father are One,” Paul and John both confirm this by stating that He (The Messiah) created all things! The prophets, specifically Jeremiah talked of how the coming King would be called “The LORD our Righteousness.” Now it may be argued that considering how often Hebrew names include the name of God this name “The LORD our Righteousness” could simply be a prediction of what the future kings name will be without inferring Divinity to the named future monarch of the line of David. For example the name Elijah (Eliyahu) means Yah is my God (Yah being the personal name of God). However remembering how Isaiah expressly declares that the future king will be called “Mighty God” and also “Everlasting father” the context of that name (in Jeremiah) clearly shows that the King will be divine. Zechariah also points to this confirming both a Davidic psalm and a prophecy of Isaiah when He states that “They shall see me whom they pierced.” The me Zechariah is referring to being God in the flesh. Isaiah talks of this in the fifty third chapter of the book bearing his name as does David in the twenty second psalm as well as the sixteenth psalm. Also we may take into consideration the fact that there is the mysterious messenger of God who appeared to the patriarchs, to Moses and other prophet’s and was referred to as YHWH God himself! Yet we are told also that no one has seen the Father! Considering the messenger is referred to as a messenger, it is clear that He is sent by someone! Yet He is God still. The case for the Triune nature of God is thus clearly revealed even in the Tanakh. You will say but what thats only two persons of the God head! Well, let us remember that in the very first verses of Genesis both God and His Spirit are talked of, His Holy Spirit is mentioned in various other texts also! John told us that “The Father, The Word and The Spirit are One.” The Son came from The Father and is One with Him, and has always been One with Him. He was in the Father and the Father in Him, and He came into the world to save his people that they may have eternal life, which is to know God and Jesus Christ who he sent.
