Have you ever heard someone tell you that you should love God? There are a lot of things that people can make you do, but love is one thing that no one can force you to do. Even God being all powerful will not make you love. A question I get a lot is “How can I love God? I want to, but I don’t feel like I do.”

Let’s look at the bible for a moment:
1 John 4:19
¹⁹We love Him because He first loved us.

The Bible says that God first loved us. In the beginning God did create the whole world and He had you in mind. The crazy thing is that God knew when He created man and woman, they would betray Him because of our sinful nature. Still knowing this, He created us because of the great desire to love inside of Him.

The plan of the cross was a plan of love. Even though it was bloody and painful Jesus did it willingly because of love. God allowed His son to die a murderer’s death because of love. He is so desperately trying to get into our lives that even today when we hear the story of Jesus something deep inside of us says “Yes” to God.

Exodus 34:14
¹⁴(for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God

His name is JEALOUS…Wow…Jealous for what?…YOU!
Our God is so desperate that He would name Himself Jealous God. Ever seen a jealous boyfriend? They begin to act strange when they feel threatened and even get emotionally hurt. Our God is so desperate that He would do just about anything to win your heart. He would go to the point of being vulnerable to share His heart and suffer the consequence of us rejecting Him.

Don’t get me wrong our God is no wimp. He is all powerful and He will destroy anything that gets in the way of you loving Him and Him loving you.

Nahum 1:2
²God is jealous, and the LORD avenges;
The LORD avenges and is furious.
The LORD will take vengeance on His adversaries,
And He reserves wrath for His enemies.

What does that make you feel like? That the all powerful God is jealous for you? Even though you have weaknesses and you will make mistakes. God loves you deeply and wants to spend time with you. He will fight against anything standing in the way of your heart!

Prayer Moment:
Ask God to reveal His heart to you and ask Him to show you anything that is stealing away your love for Him.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 1:20 pm and is filed under Devotionals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.