People should see love the way God sees love. Many do not. People see it more as emotions and feelings than anything else. Even people define love the wrong way. For example there are believers who has problem with smoking and other believers will see them as people who do not love God. When believers are struggling with things that are unholy, people may tag them with “If you really love God, you would not be doing those things you do”. Yes love has a part to play but not in the way you think. Let us see how God sees love so that this love that is shed abroad in our hearts would begin to have a hold on us. God is love which means its source is from him not from us. We are not the ones producing the love. The emphasis of love is not from our end but from God’s end. It is about God loving us. This is the picture of true love.
1 John 4:10 (KJV)
10 HEREIN IS LOVE, not that we loved God, BUT THAT HE LOVED US, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
The struggle of a believer is not that he does not love God but that he has not received fully God’s unconditional love for him. Once we see all that Christ did for us, all our failures he has taken and all of his righteousness and success he has given us, there is no addiction or sickness that has a right to remain with you again. It is about God’s love for us not ours. When you see’s God’s love, you will live more holy than a person who is struggling to love God. Stop the struggling, allow God to love you.
Before you can even trust God, there must be love. When you see his love, you will trust him and if you trust him, you will begin to obey him. The foundation of trust is love. When we remain in God’s love then trust begins to develop and obedience becomes easier.
John 15:9-10 (KJV)
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: CONTINUE YE IN MY LOVE.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; EVEN AS I HAVE KEPT MY FATHER’S COMMANDMENTS, AND ABIDE IN HIS LOVE.
You have been hearing “You do not love God enough. You need to do more. You need to have more zeal and passion.” That is not the way to go. Once you see that God loves you, trusting God for victory in your life will never be a problem again. Why people are disobeying God is due to distrust planted by the devils schemes. Nobody needs you hammering at the problem, hammer on the solution which is God’s love for you.
Trust is likened to leaning on something according to Proverbs 3:5. John the apostle leaned on Jesus bosom. It was symbolic. He was resting on Jesus’s love for him. That is why he called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. Unlike peter who at that time before Jesus died was boasting in his love for Jesus. In the end he denied Jesus three times. There is nothing wrong in saying you love God but the equation is incomplete without first understanding that Jesus loves you unconditionally (John 15:9).
Trust is personally believing that God loves you unconditionally. Whatever you do will not change his love for you. Our experiences with men have made us think that God behaves the same way. You want to compare the almighty God, the creator to the created? That is where the problem is.
Isaiah 46:5 (KJV)
5 TO WHOM WILL YE LIKEN ME, AND MAKE ME EQUAL, AND COMPARE ME, THAT WE MAY BE LIKE?
God is not a man. Kick it out of your head. The nature of God is not that if you treat him right then he is obligated to treat you right. No way. His nature is Love all the way.
1 John 4:8 (KJV)
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; FOR GOD IS LOVE.
Trust will never be a problem when love is resident in your heart. If you knew that there is no barrier between you and God, how would you live? If you knew that God is always on your side, how would you live? Love has remove the barriers and made God to be on our side. Why should you not trust him.
In the parable of the sower (Luke 8), all the devils effort is to make you lose your trust in God. That the word of God does not work. He sends persecution, deception and pleasures of this life to make you believe that God does not love you. The devil is not only making you not to trust in God but he is redirecting your trust to other things. He wants you to trust in your skills, your bank account, the government or your unbelieving rich friends. What you focus on the most is where your trust is. Trusting God is believing that He loves you. He will favour me. He will provide for me. He will direct me. He will, not because am perfect but because I am accepted in the beloved. I am fully loved. When you see how big and how much God loves you, you will see your problems shrinking right before your eyes.