Characteristics Of Love For God

This is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more.

Philippians 1:9, niv

Genuine love for God has many facets. Here is a list of the most important ones.

• It longs for personal communion with God (Ps 42:1-2; 73:25).


• It trusts in God’s power to protect His own (Ps 31:23).


• It is characterized by peace that only God can impart (Ps 119:165; John 14:27).


• It is sensitive to God’s will and His honor (Ps 69:9).


• It loves the people God loves (1 John 4:7-8, 20-21).


• It hates what God hates (1 John 2:15).


• It longs for the Second Coming of Christ (2 Tim 4:8).

Finally, and most important, it is marked by obedience to God (John 14:21; 1 John 5:1-2).

We are able to love God and manifest these facets only because He first loved us (1 John 4:7, 10, 19). Do you love God?

MacArthur, J. (2001). Truth for today : A daily touch of God's grace (Page 279). Nashville, Tenn.: J. Countryman.

Lessons Learned: A love for God needs to be our greatest passion. Love is one of God's communicable attributes, and when we love Him, we are reflecting back some of His love for us. In fact, he loved us so much, that while we were still His enemies, He sent His son to die for us (Rom 5:8). Our love for God must be marked by obedience to Him and communion with Him. We must desire to love Him more and more, but we must love with knowledge and discernment. Genuine love is rooting in the truth of Scripture. Love is not blind, but perceptive, and it examines carefully to distinguish between right and wrong. As we grow closer to Him through biblical knowledge, we will learn to love what God loves, and hate what God hates. We will become sensitive to His will and seek to fulfill it.

Applications: The greatest spiritual gift is love (1 Cor 13:13). Faith and Hope are of this world, but Love is eternal. It is an attribute of God, it is part of who He is. In the same way, because we are made in His image, love is a part of who we are. We cannot help but love, but too often we love only ourselves. We must learn to deny ourselves, and love God and love others instead. Loving God, praising and cherishing Him, must be our greatest desire. We must seek to glorify and honor Him in all that we do. It must be our one consuming passion.

Prayer Subjects: Pray that I would be singlemindedly focused on loving God. Pray that I would not love anything else before God (Deu 5:7), that I would not practice idolatry. Pray that I would grow in biblical wisdom and knowledge so that I would obediently follow God's will and love what He loves and hate what He hates.

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