You know which word I mean. Love. We use it all the time. "I love ice cream." "I love the Sooners." "I love naps." It's a common word. People stress about who says it first in a relationship, and whether or not it's said too soon. I know someone who said "I love you" to a guy after 1 week of dating. Little bit ridiculous. But anyway... what does the word "love" mean?? What does it look like to love our parents? Our siblings? Our coworkers? Our friends?
Today's culture would have us believe that love is what makes us feel good. "Being in love" is desirable because it makes us happy. Loving someone means that you want to bee with them all the time, that they make you feel good. (This goes for friendships and family members, as well as for romantic relationships.) But, this version of love is shallow and deceptive. What happens when a person you "love" has a habit that really grates on your nerves? Like biting their nails... or crunching on ice really loudly... or ALWAYS putting the toilet paper facing "the wrong way" on the roller? Or what if they just really tick you off? What if they hurt you? What if they betray you? Obviously, none of these things make you feel good. So, according to the world... you don't love them any more. Because they aren't giving you that "warm fuzzy" feeling. And that feeling is love... Isn't it?
Luckily for us poor screwed up humans, Jesus' view of love isn't nearly this shallow. His version of love is selfless instead of selfish. Jesus' version of love included a LOT of giving. In fact, He ended up giving His life, the most precious possession humans have (John 15:13). This concept of selflessness flies in the face of everything our culture tries to tell us about love. Josh Harris writes, "The world takes us to a silver screen on which flickering images of passion and romance play, and as we watch, the world says, 'This is love.' God takes us to the foot of a tree on which a naked and bloodied man hangs and says, 'This is love.'"
Oh, how He loves us. He gave us everything, and we deserved none of it. So... How are we, as followers of Christ, supposed to respond to this love??
As humans, we naturally express love for something by worshipping it--by giving it worth. If you're a Sooner fan, this means you wear the crimson and cream, and you scream like crazy when OU gets a touchdown. If you're a Josh Turner fan (or whoever your favorite band/music artist is), you buy their album the minute it comes out on iTunes. If you're a COD fan, you stay up til 5 AM playing it. You devote a lot of time and energy to what you love--you give it worth. So how do we worship God? Well... what gives God worth? John 14:15: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." So... WORSHIP IS OBEDIENCE. And obedience is worship. Nothing else counts as worship. If we raise our hands and sing and get all emotional over the worship music on Sunday mornings, and then don't tithe... we're not worshipping. If we only listen to Christian music but then refuse to admit we're wrong when we hurt someone... we're not worshipping. If we read our Bibles 364 days out of the year and then talk negatively about people we don't like... Yep, you guessed it. We're not worshipping. I Samuel 15:22 says, "Then Samuel said: Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? Look: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams." God feels loved when we obey Him.
Now, I'm an oldest child. I've always struggled with obedience. And God's version of obedience is especially hard for me. You see, God almost NEVER tells me WHY He wants me to do something. He just says to do it. I really, really don't like this. I want to know why God tells me to do something, and I want to know exactly what's going to happen if I do it. But that's not how God works. We will never know why we are told to do something until we do it. "It's in the obedience that we find the why." (Andy Harrison) As followers of Christ, we are called to do "the next thing." We don't get to know the whole story, at least not right now. We're just called to obey him by taking the next step.
And here's the thing: if you love God, you want to obey him. This doesn't mean it's easy--but the desire to do what God wants becomes the most important thing in your life. Ed Newton says, "If you're trying to earn God's approval through obedience, [His commands] are burdensome. It's when you obey God because of love that His commands are not a burden." This makes sense. If a friend calls you randomly and asks a favor, chances are you're more than willing to help them out. If a random person walks up to you and says you owe them that same favor... you're not going to be as happy about doing it. You'll probably hate every second of it, and do as little as you can possibly get away with. If we see God as the big Rule-Maker in the sky, we're not exactly going to be looking for ways to show love to Him. But if we see Him as the Lover of our souls... then we begin to pursue Him with everything that we are.
If I'm going to show love to God... That means He gets everything. No "buts" or "exceptions." He gets my car, my friends, my clothes, my music, my computer, my Facebook, my relationships, my plans, and my paycheck. And anything else you can think of. God is worthy of everything that I have. A few weeks ago my pastor said, "If there's anything in your life that you wouldn't be willing to give up if God asked for it--it needs to go." Because if you're not willing to give something up for God--then what are you saying is most valuable to you?
"We love because He first loved us." 1 John 4:19
