What does "Love your God" mean?

Eldeah said:

Hi I am Eldeah,
I have a rather simple question.
What does Love your G'd mean or implies?

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Hi!

I am a big believer in letting the Bible interpret Itself

Right in God’s own personal Testimony, that God personally wrote and spoke Exo 31:18 Exo 20:1-17 He answers this question….

How do we love God

Exo 20: 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

Its a theme repeated throughout the Scriptures

John 14: 15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.
1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

God bless!

Eldeah said:

would you then say that keeping the commandments is the way to love G'd?

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What we say means nothing

This is what God’s Word says

1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.

God wants us to obey Him through a changed heart Psa 40:8 Heb 8:10 and we can only so that through Jesus and the Holy Spirit John 14:15-18

Why are you asking this question?

Luke 7 He that is forgiven much Loves much. We have to humbly accept God charitable selfless unconditional forgiveness of the huge debt our sins have created, and we will automatically obtain Godly type Love, to Love God and others.

Eldeah said:

Hi I am Eldeah,
I have a rather simple question.
What does Love your G'd mean or implies?

Click to expand...

I don't usually post YouTube videos to address questions, but I think the Bible Project does a good job with some of their videos in providing easy to understand, but rich explorations of biblical topics. It's a pretty short video.


Summary and commentary:

To love God is, in essence, to respond in kind back to God what God has shown us; and we do that by taking Him seriously in our lives, living in such a way that is in keeping with Himself and His way. Which is also why when Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, He responds by saying to love the Lord our God, but also adds that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. It is not possible to love God and hate other people, this is made plain throughout the entire Bible, but is mentioned most explicitly when St. John writes that if we say we love God but hate our brother, then we are liars, the love of God is not in us. There is a direct and inseparable union between loving God and loving others, and this gets deeper theologically as we understand that human beings were made in God's Image, and that being human is supposed to be about reflecting God's Image and also recognizing that Divine Image in others--and even further, that this extends to our caretaking of the world.

This is also what is indicated by the word translated as "might" or "strength" in "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deuteronomy 6:5). The word is me'od, and it's an adjective that means "exceedingly" or "very" or "much". In Genesis when we read that God saw all that He made and it was "very good", it's the word "very" in "very good". The commandment is to love God with all our heart, our lebab, our mind, our understanding, our entire inner self; and with all our soul, our nephesh, our breath, our life, our whole existence; and with our me'od, our much, our very, our exceeding--with everything we are, everything we have, with our utmost. And this love of God happens as we reject idols to worship Him, for He alone is God; as we repent and turn away from our selfish ways of sin and death, toward the way of life, walking in humble obedience and serve, to live rightly in accordance with what He says and Who He is. As we live, and walk, and talk, and breathe, and think, and feel in the world, to one another, in our communities, in our families, toward the stranger, the foreigner, the weak, the poor, the hungry, the naked, the oppressed, the sick, the imprisoned. As we relate to each other personally, and in community, and how we operate in our societies, what we do, how we do it, in every facet of our existence, our very life itself.

To love God is to do what God says, to live as God wills, to exist in God's way, to reflect God, bear God's Image, not merely in outward obedience, but rejoicing inwardly, that our desire itself should be orientated with God, toward God, and toward our neighbor.

That is what it means to love God. And it is why Jesus also says, "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

Now, some unfortunate bad news: Sin. And so this: We don't love the Lord our God with our whole heart, our whole soul, and our whole utmost. We demonstrate this with every wayward thought, every selfish act, with every toxic word we speak to another person, with every sinful impulse we experience.

-CryptoLutheran

Eldeah said:

But accepting what does accepting imply? I would assume that it starts with abiding in his love -> which is keeping his commandments

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God is Love and as such Forgives everyone all the time, but as we learn from the Parable of the unmerciful servant (Matt. 18) forgiveness does not always take place. Forgiveness is a transaction so the receiver of the forgiveness must accept God's forgiving them as pure unselfish charity to complete the transaction. God Loves you first, so accepting His Love in the form of being forgiven, provides you with Godly type Love to Love God.

Eldeah said:

Hi I am Eldeah,
I have a rather simple question.
What does Love your G'd mean or implies?

Click to expand...

The new creation, the born-again saint, the New Covenant Christian of Jer 31:31-34 Will love God with all their heart Deut 6:4

"This IS the Love of God - that we KEEP His commandments" 1 John 5:3-4

Eldeah said:

Hi I am Eldeah,
I have a rather simple question.
What does Love your G'd mean or implies?

Click to expand...

It means only one thing: that we know Him. The love of God is inevitable, unstoppable.