LOVING WITH ALL YOU HAVE GOT

LOVING WITH ALL YOU HAVE GOT

God wants my total trust.

I have learned to say with Job “though He slay me yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).  I can do this with confidence because I know His nature, because I know His grace.  Otherwise it would be impossible.

Furthermore, I have proved Him to be trustworthy and trusting Him wholly is the only sensible thing to do.

But that is not enough, He rightly asks more, He wants everything.  To be in the fullness of relationship with Him I must give Him my total love.  I should:

“love the Lord [my] God with all [my]heart, and with all [my] soul, and with all [my] mind, and with all [my] strength” (Mark 12:30).

Anything less is unworthy of Him and anything less fails to enter into the fullness of His love.

Would I have wanted my wife to love me less than with her whole being?  No.  (She demonstrated God’s love very wonderfully.)  Should I love my God, my Creator and my Father any less?

And as I give back to Him the very finite love He has given me He pours in torrents of His endless fullness, enabling me to love Him more and have confidence in Him through grief and pain.

This is more than thankfulness for His favour.  It is more than loving Him for the Cross.  It is includes loving Him for working out the glorious “hope of His calling” in me through suffering and pain.

Above all, it is loving Him for Who He is.

It should be my settled disposition which will show in all that I do and which gives me peace.

It will affect my prayers.  Although I may pray the same prayers they will be different if my heart is different.  Whereas once in my fervour I might have slipped into trying to manipulate God to do my will, now I will be more wholly seeking His pleasure.