Regarding your time with God, don’t look for the pleasure payoff. It’s best to pursue this relationship because we love Him and because it’s God’s will for us.
It just dawned on me that there is a deeper love that I can have for God than I thought.
I currently love being with God for all the fruits of the spirit that He provides.
I love receiving His peace, patience, kindness, and joy.
I love receiving His comfort and courage, and of course, there is the gift of eternity.
Yet, as I pause for a minute, I see I’m a consumer of God’s goodness.
I love Him for what I can receive from Him.
I see now that there is a deeper love that I desire to pursue.
I want to love God because of who He is and what He already has done, by giving His Son to die for us. Can that be enough? Should we receive nothing else? Can this be enough reason to love God? The irony is that even if we can get to this level of love, God has a way of seeing that we receive the other gifts as well.
He just desires our hearts to be in the right place. We can see this with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were before the king.
Daniel 3:17-18
“If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
Will we love God even if we receive nothing in return?
There is a long list of those who did not receive all they hoped for yet continued to love God.
Read Hebrews 11.
I think of Mother Theresa who, for most of her life, felt God abandoned her yet, saw a deeper love for Him regardless.
Lord, I desire this depth of love with my mouth. Help me to reach it with my heart.
Can I do this with a joyful spirit and not with a scowl as that of a martyr?
I love you, Lord.
#JustAThought
