Mark 12:30(NIV); “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strengthâ€. This is the first and greatest commandment.
The bedrock of our Christian living lies in having an enduring loving relationship with God. That interaction influences our lives so that we receive wisdom, power, and ability to live the Christian life. Developing this enduring loving relationship entails making a commitment to love God and draw close to God by having constant communion with Him daily-setting apart time to study His word, apply what we read, praying, fasting and serving Him in our local church or in any other area He might call us. Some might commit to doing these things superficially just to be called a believer and not as a sign that we want to know God in truth and spirit. When you just do it as part of being a church member, you will not be totally given to it but when your main purpose of these activities is to love God by seeking God, finding Him and living for Him, it totally changes the trajectory of your life. The bible states that it is not every seeker of God that finds Him. Those that find Him are those that seek Him with their whole heart as stated in the passages below:
Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV) ;13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
God has already provided a way of knowing Him through the Lord Jesus as we have discussed in Loving God by Knowing God 1 blog. As we grow in our faith and seek God because you want to know Him, love Him, please Him and serve Him, God will help you to grow in the knowledge of Him. And this experience produces fruits of righteousness by His grace and the help of the Holy Spirit and occur through various works of grace that God does in our hearts and lives.
Transformation of our hearts:
Ezekiel 36:26 (NIV) 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Some of us believers still live a sinful lifestyle because we have hardened our hearts and refused to seek God and know Him to receive power to live for Him. But God wants us to seek Him so that He can help us to run our Christian race. When we therefore seek Him and develop a loving relationship with God our father who is Holy and hates sin; but at the same time wants us His children who are imperfect to relate to Him, He will ensure the progressive sanctification of our hearts through His word.
The heart transformation produces changes in our thought patterns that affect the thoughts that we think which become our words, actions and worldviews.
He gives us understanding of the word of God that we are constantly studying and give us the Grace to do them. Just like a mom will carry her child who was dirty but excited to see her back from work, give her a shower and clothe her, so God will welcome his imperfect children who diligently study His word, apply the word and continue in prayer. He will grant us the grace to mature and grow in the knowledge of Him and gradually we are shedding our evil ways and living for him.
A common slogan is that you will be like those you associate with. This is true of our heavenly father also. Loving relationship with Him influences his children who come to Him that they adopt God’s principles and want to do them because they came to Him in love.
Change of Perception:
Your perception determines how you interpret things and therefore determines your attitude and action towards a thing and your reaction when something happens. Some of us Christians read the bible but have worldly perceptions or distorted perceptions probably from our doctrinal background and when something happens, we do not apply biblical principles as God intended them to be applied. For example, the Lord Jesus does not want us to seek revenge when we have been wronged by someone but by worldly standards, if you do not revenge, you will be perceived to be a fool. Some of us Christians seek revenge against our enemies because we harden our hearts against the word of God and the direction of the Holy Spirit.
However, as we develop a close relationship with God, He will help us to change our perception or worldview to align with His own and these will align with the principles in the word of God. As we pointed earlier, He transforms our hearts by giving us the grace to want to do things His way and bring glory to His name. When we see things from God’s point of view, it influences how we react to things and determines the deliberate action that we take and in our normal daily interactions, the Holy Spirit will guide us and help us to obey Him. This is because we are willing to obey Him now and want to know and love Him more than we want anything else.
Change of Action:
Because our hearts have been transformed and empowered by the Holy Spirit to think in a Godly way per Christian principles ordained by God, our perceptions, worldview, words, and actions changes to reflect the transformation that has occurred in us. We act in a way that will bring glory to God. Developing a loving relationship with God enables us to please Him whether people like it or not. The most important thing to us is that we consistently serve God and honor Him not out of constraint, mechanically and legalistically but from a pure and loving heart. Where we have cursed before, we bless. Impatience gives way to patience, lies to truth and hatred to love etc.
May God help us to be consistent in seeking and Loving Him- Amen.
