Did you know that you never have to worry whether your love for your mate, children or friends is greater than your love for God? You heard it right.
It is impossible to love God more than you do people or yourself.
To put it straight forward, you’re believing some lies if you ask yourself these type of questions:
- Is my love for God greater than for people, or even myself?
Do I give God only the crumbs of my life or more than that?
- Am I more focused on God then the one ones I love?
Do I have idols in my life that compete with God?
Today you can put a final stop to nagging questions like these.
Division between Spiritual and Worldly abolished
At the root of these questions is the lie that says there is a division between sacred & secular or spiritual & worldly. Therefore people say that you need to prioritize God and “spiritual things” over everything else – the “worldy things.” Consequently we’ve come to believe that our love for God – wich falls in the spiritual category – must be greater or get more focus than our love for people – which falls in the worldly category.
As I’ve said in an ealier post, Jesus Christ has abolished this false dichotomy between the sacred and secular. Since you are a spiritual being who lives in a human body everything you do is 100% spiritual and 100 % natural. Every action is spiritual because you are a spririt being.
We need to realize that God in you defines who you really are. As He is so are you (1 John 4:17). And God is love. That makes you per definition a lover. A lover of both God and people. It’s His supernatural love in you that enables you to love God and people. In other words, we love God and people by using God’s own supernatural love that’s been poured out into our hearts (Rom. 5:5).
Loving God is to love people
Because there’s isn’t a division between spiritual and worldly activities we can’t draw a line and put at one side spiritual: “Love for God” and the other side worldly: “Love for People” as if they’re separate activities. We can’t make a distinction saying, “Well, my love for God is greater than my love for people when I do these spiritual activities” or “I make sure to put God first place and love God more then people by spending much time alone with Him.”
The truth is, we are loving God when we love on people. Loving God is to love people!
I am not saying you don’t have to schedule your weekly activities and plan things things like Bible study and prayer and such. We do. And it’s wonderful when we encounter God in these times. But my goal with these teachings is to help you see that God is always with you, in you, and involved in everything you do so you can encounter God in all your every day activities and relationships!
One of the greatest hindrances to experiential intimacy with God is the concept of distractions. We view nearly everything as being distraction from our relationship with God, but only in extreme cases is this actually true. Your spouse, your kids, your job, and your life in general, are not distractions from intimacy, but opportunities to encounter God in various ways. He is uniquely expressed through our relationships with each other, as well as through the variety of roles we must fill, but if we are only able to see these things as distractions, we will never experience the beauty of our multi-faceted God. In the name of knowing God more, we’ll know Him less, for we’ll avoid the means through which He desires to reveal Himself to us. There are no such things as distractions, only opportunities to know and experience just how deep our union goes. – Jeff Turner
Loving God more then people?
The consequences of believing the lie that your love for others must not be greater than your love for God are disastrous. For instance, people will check themselves to make sure they don’t love their relatives, friends, even yourself and their own enjoyment to much. Because what if they would love them more then God? What if someone else then God is in the first place in their life? They constantly measure whether or not their thoughts are more focused on God than on the ones they love. What’s the result? Anxiety and doubt.
Darin Hufford writes, “God is not in competition for you love. I am always mystified when I hear people boastfully say, “I love God more then my wife.” The only way to love God more than your spouse is to love God through your spouse. Your husband or wife would be the direct recipient of that love. Don’t ever think that He will even raise such a question as to whom you love more…the God who is love loves it when we love…God is never in competition with your love for people!
Any time you love a person, you are not far from God. Your love for people is the evidence that God is living inside you. It is impossible to love God more than you do people. All people are the direct recipient of our love For God. It is impossible to have a relationship with God aside from relationships with people. He doesn’t get jealous or envious of our love for His people; He delights in it because that is how He created life to work…only selfish people ask the question “Whom do you love more?”…Jesus told us that the way to love God is to love His people” (From: The Misunderstood God).
Your idol is no more
Instead of frantically wonder if there are people or “idols” that compete with our love for God we can be at peace because it is impossible for you to have a greater love for others then God. Remember, you love God by loving people.
It’s normal to have affection towards people and even material things, but unlike being under the law, it is impossible for you to have “idols” that you somehow can set up in your heart that would “stand between God and you.” Why? Because Jesus Christ has removed the one big “idol” – your sin nature – once for all (Rom. 6:6) and made you the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21).
That means Jesus’ standing before the Father is yours too! Just as nothing will ever stand in between Jesus and the Father, so nothing will ever stand in between you and the Father. You are one with Him (1 Cor. 6:17).
Even though you’re one with God, the devil will keep lying to you saying,
You haven’t been feeling God’s love much lately. Have you? I tell you what’s the problem: you have greater love for people than God. You’ve set up idols in your life and distanted yourself from God. You’re backsliding. You need put God first place again. You need to love God more then anything else. You haven’t read the Bible enough. You’re prayer life sucks. You’re a loser and failure.
The devil wants you to define your idenity and life by your struggles and how you feel instead of by who you are in Christ.
Do I love God enough? The answer is “Never.” Nobody is capable of loving God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus wasn’t talking to you when He was quoting that commandment from the law (click here to find out why).
We can’t love Him in our own ability. Plus, your emotions go go up and down like a jojo. However, God’s love in your spirit doesn’t. And His love is the barometer for your life and identity.
Since His love is unchanging, unfailing and never ending, your love for Him never changes. Again, we do not base our identity on what we do or how we feel, but on who Christ is. God loves you, not because you are lovely in and of yourself, but because He is love.
You are a secret place
Also, the concept of “loving God” cannot be defined by time spend in the “secret place,” aka your quite time or times alone with God. You can’t say, “being in my secret place or prayer closet is my ‘loving God-time’, then I go out, be practical and have ‘loving people-time’.” Even though to set time apart for prayer, Bible study and such is good but these times do not equal to “loving God”-times
No, you love God by continually drinking of His love and let it spill over to those around you. Because you are in union with God you don’t go in and out of your secret place. The truth is, you are a secret place. You don’t go in and out of who you are. You are who you are in Him.
You live in a continual season of refreshing, called the New Covenant of Grace. So your Grace walk isn’t about getting filled with His love, but staying filled with His love. You don’t get a temporary filling in your secret place, do things for God to be dried up the next day in need for another infilling.
Conclusion
Instead of striving and sweating to love God more and checking ourselves whether or not our love for Him is greater then our love for people, the Gospel invites you to kick back and learn to drink deeply from the river of His love that’s already present in your belly and let it effortlessly spill out to anybody around you.
Enjoy loving God by encountering Him in every day life.
In the next post more Good News: how to avoid the danger of seeking for the right balance in your Christian walk.
