How does one "love" God?

[Martinius]

One of my favorite passages is in Matthew 22 when Jesus teaches about the greatest commandments. The instruction to love God with "all our heart, all our soul and all our mind (or strength)" is orginally from Deuteronomy 6. But what does this mean? How do we love God?

In Jesus we have an object for that love, as well as further instructions regarding loving our neighbor. But the people of the OT did not have Jesus, just a basic commandment, so how did they demonstrate their "love of God"? What was God/Moses/The unknown author of Deut. (pick your source) really telling us?

The corrollary to that is how can God or anyone else "command" or force someone to love? Doesn't love have to come from the "heart" or soul to be true?

 

[wayseer]

Doesn't love have to come from the "heart" or soul to be true?

No - it comes from what we do. Remember the Good Samaritan.

 

[heritage36]

You have to know God and what he wants, and then live your life according to his truth.

 

[LBP]

You have raised what are, or should be, very deep and profound issues. When I was a Southern Baptist, I felt that I and everyone around me was just spouting hollow platitudes with all the talk of "loving" God. "Loving" God seemed to be quite a shallow and superficial concept; as easy as falling off a log. Several years ago, I gave up any pretense of "loving" God -- this language just rang silly and false to me in the context of a creature responding to its invisible and unfathomable creator. While God may have revealed Himself to man to an extent, the reality is that He remains a great mystery; I don't know that "lovable" is an adjective I'd choose based on what has been revealed. My attitude toward God (and my prayer life) was transformed when I decided I'd drop this language and simply "give thanks" for the gift of life and the opportunity to experience the mystery of existence. So I have basically subsituted "gratitude" for "love" and try to show that gratitude by living my life in a way that I hope will please God. In all honesty, I'd have to say that I love my wife, or my cats for that matter, 100 or 1000 times more than I love God -- but I can certainly stand in genuine awe of God and the splendor of His creation and sincerely thank Him for allowing me to participate, and I don't feel like a complete phony when I do that.

 

[Martinius]

You have raised what are, or should be, very deep and profound issues. When I was a Southern Baptist, I felt that I and everyone around me was just spouting hollow platitudes with all the talk of "loving" God. "Loving" God seemed to be quite a shallow and superficial concept; as easy as falling off a log. Several years ago, I gave up any pretense of "loving" God -- this language just rang silly and false to me in the context of a creature responding to its invisible and unfathomable creator. While God may have revealed Himself to man to an extent, the reality is that He remains a great mystery; I don't know that "lovable" is an adjective I'd choose based on what has been revealed. My attitude toward God (and my prayer life) was transformed when I decided I'd drop this language and simply "give thanks" for the gift of life and the opportunity to experience the mystery of existence. So I have basically subsituted "gratitude" for "love" and try to show that gratitude by living my life in a way that I hope will please God. In all honesty, I'd have to say that I love my wife, or my cats for that matter, 100 or 1000 times more than I love God -- but I can certainly stand in genuine awe of God and the splendor of His creation and sincerely thank Him for allowing me to participate, and I don't feel like a complete phony when I do that.

Thank you for your excellent comments; you understood exactly what I was asking. I am also humbled that you consider my questions "profound".

When I read the Old Testament I fail to find examples of people who "love" God. Rather, the thought of God seems to engender feelings like awe, fear, respect, wonder, etc. But not "love". When one looks at the commandments given to Moses as recorded in Exodus, there is no mention of love for God. That term shows up later. I also like your point that "lovable" is not an adjective you would use to describe God. I would think that in general only a child would say that, and with an image of Jesus in mind.

Continuing with one of your other thoughts, perhaps we should combine the two greatest commandments and say that we love God by loving our neighbor (which is everyone). In reality that is what Jesus taught in parables like the Good Samaritan as wayseer points out. What we do to or for anyone else we do to or for Him. And perhaps another way to show our real love for God is through standing fast in our faith and trust in Him, no matter the consequences. As the early Christian martyrs did.

 

[Distinguished]

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey my commands."

 

[Martinius]

Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey my commands."

Thanks for your comments.

I understand and agree with what you say (and what Jesus said) but since "to love God" is a later commandment, His statement was not known to the people of the Book. They had the commandments, but they originally never referred to "love of God". Rather, it seems like the commandments and other instructions pointed toward obedience out of fear and respect for a supreme authority and protector. It was only with Jesus that the concept of "love for God" is developed and given priority.

I have the impression that our love for God is markedly different than love we would have for another person or anything else. It many ways it is unexplainable, and requires us not only to follow the commandments (which is difficult enough) but to be ready and willing to give our life for a friend out of love for them and for God. Quite a difference from the Old Testament understanding.

 

[addo]

"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments." (1 John 5:3)

 

[tturt]

As posted - by keeping His commandments. Adam and Eve walked with Yahweh (Gen 3:8) and their children gave offerings/sacrifices to Him and they communicated with Him about what was going on (Gen 4:1-15). Cain showed a bad attitude in Gen 4:6-7 and Yahweh pointed it out and told him how to fix it. But Cain didn't want to change his heart/his attitude. With the first 4 people, we see 3 out of 4 rebelled against what Yahweh had said. I've heard some say the problem was the type of sacrifice Cain used. But according to Heb 11:4 "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh."

God created the earth for us. He gives us the day, each breath, nature, and every good thing - whatever that is to you. Jesus could have remained in heaven and not established the new covenant. I just don't see where we're being forced to follow His commandments. No matter what's going on in our individual lives, we can still have His peace, love, etc. Granted sometimes things can get "heavy," but He promises to never leave us nor forsake us. The Creator of the Universe knows every detail about us and loves us anyway.

 

[Martinius]

I appreciate all your comments and I agree with the general concensus about keeping the commandments as the way of "showing" our love for God. But my point is about what we "love" and why. For example, do you obey laws because you "love" the lawmakers or because you don't want to be fined or jailed for breaking them, or because you feel it is good for society if everyone follows the same laws and rules? Did you obey your parents because you loved them or because you feared their punishment? Or some of both?

With God, there is no visible "something" to love. We can love what someone said or did, but how do we translate that into true love for the entity that is speaking or doing? In the OT there is little if anything about love for God but a lot about obedience. Did the Hebrews in the OT love God or was it respect and fear that kept them on the right path?

With the Incarnation, we have an actual person who we can envision, that some touched, that people could hear and see, someone we can have great empathy for and trust in, a person who is much more "real" to us than a mysterious and indescribable God. So when we say we love God isn't our love really directed toward Jesus? We really know God the way we do only through Him; otherwise we have no "object" for our love for God.

So I am not asking for concrete examples of actual ways to show our love for God, but am asking how can we really love something or someone we don't really know? Another way of asking this is to wonder whether it was only when Jesus was incarnated that people could completely "love" God? Before Him I would doubt that anyone would have said "God is Love".

If someone knows of an OT passage, perhaps in a Psalm, that talks about loving God, please let us know.

 

[Jig]

Another way of asking this is to wonder whether it was only when Jesus was incarnated that people could completely "love" God? Before Him I would doubt that anyone would have said "God is Love".

Deuteronomy 7:7-13 speaks of His love for the nation of Israel; Isaiah 63:9 speaks of God saving people due to His love for them. On many occasions through the Old Testament the mercy of God is praised (Psalm 57:3; 59:10; 62:12; 86:13; 100:5; 106:1, etc.).

A cursory non-academic scanning of the Old Testament reveals 446 mentions of God’s ‘love’ and 100 occurrences of ‘mercy’ as opposed to 135 mentions of ‘hate’ and 173 of ‘wrath’. Considering this is a large collection of legal documents where one would expect to find a significant amount of ‘wrath’, this is a significant statistic: 551 love/mercy vs. 308 hate/wrath. Compare this to the New Testament where the statistic is 291 love/mercy vs. 71 hate/wrath. The percentage of love/wrath in the OT is 64% love to 36% wrath. In the New Testament that statistics are: 80% love vs. 20 % wrath.

Some OT passages that show God's mercy and love:

Micah 7:18-19
18 Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
19 You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.

Proverbs 3:11-12
11 My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline,
and do not resent his rebuke,
12 because the LORD disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.

​

 

[Martinius]

Thanks, Jig, for the information on the use of the words "love" and "mercy" in both the OT and NT. It is significant that the proportion of the positive words vs the negative is so much higher in the New Testament.

What this reveals is a focus of love by God for us and His creation in the OT; one could derive the idea that "God is love" from that. But where do we see this love reciprocated in the OT? It seems to me (not using any gathered data but just my impression from reading the Bible) that it is really only in the New Testament that we read about love for God. It is only Jesus who makes the connection total, who emphasizes love for God and one another, who shows and teaches us what it really means to love God.

If we were able to ask the people of the Book in OT days how they felt about God, I wonder how many would characterize their relationship with Him in terms of "love"? Through Jesus our relationship with God was radically changed.

An old children's song just popped into my head, the one that starts "Jesus loves me, this I know". This is a very good example of how love between God and us is personified in Jesus. People before Jesus would not have had that "intimate" connection; so would they have felt and said that they loved God? It appears, generally, no.

 

[tturt]

You know when we are dating and marry someone, we really get to know that person. Perhaps a study of all of Yahweh’s titles, names, and attributes would be helpful. There are hundreds, if not thousands. By meditating on a few at a time, we can have a better understanding of who He is. By meditating I don’t mean emptying our minds but instead focusing on Him and who He is. Yahweh never changes whether in the OT, NT or now.

 

[Jig]

Thanks, Jig, for the information on the use of the words "love" and "mercy" in both the OT and NT. It is significant that the proportion of the positive words vs the negative is so much higher in the New Testament.

I wouldn't call a difference by about 15% all that significant, especially since the OT contains much more legal briefings than the the NT.

The vast majority of the text in both the OT and NT focus on God's love and mercy.

What this reveals is a focus of love by God for us and His creation in the OT; one could derive the idea that "God is love" from that. But where do we see this love reciprocated in the OT? It seems to me (not using any gathered data but just my impression from reading the Bible) that it is really only in the New Testament that we read about love for God.

Are you familiar with the Shema Jewish prayer. It is taken directly from Deuteronomy.

Deut. 6:4-9 (ESV)
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Shema Yisrael - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mezuzah - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If we were able to ask the people of the Book in OT days how they felt about God, I wonder how many would characterize their relationship with Him in terms of "love"?

If you ask a Jew today, they will say they love God.

 

[Martinius]

I wouldn't call a difference by about 15% all that significant, especially since the OT contains much more legal briefings than the the NT.

15% in an election is considered quite significant. Look at the relative proportions here: In the OT it is less than 2:1 whereas in the NT it is better than 4:1. THAT is significantly different.

The vast majority of the text in both the OT and NT focus on God's love and mercy.

But what percent in each talk about God's love for us and what percent talk about our love for God? I would suspect that the latter is much higher in the NT.

Are you familiar with the Shema Jewish prayer. It is taken directly from Deuteronomy.

Deut. 6:4-9 (ESV)
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
If you ask a Jew today, they will say they love God.

Yes, that is the one place in the OT where that commandment is stated, and is the basis for the teaching by Jesus. The commandments in Exodus do not include that; there is no mention of love for God there.

Again my point is not about love of God for us, but our love for God, which is notably absent in the OT, but is an integral part of the Gospels. And my theory about this is that it is due to a lack of "something" to love; how does one "love" the unknown or indescribable?

 

[Jig]

15% in an election is considered quite significant. Look at the relative proportions here: In the OT it is less than 2:1 whereas in the NT it is better than 4:1. THAT is significantly different.

To steal your analogy...but in an election, 2:1 is quite significant. The fact is, the vast majority of the OT talks about love/mercy over wrath/hate.

Yes, that is the one place in the OT where that commandment is stated, and is the basis for the teaching by Jesus. The commandments in Exodus do not include that; there is no mention of love for God there.

That is not just the "one place". Though it is probably the most used and most prominent place. Throughout the OT we also see a contrast occur between those who love idols and those who love God. Why would such a contrast exist if there was no focus in loving God?

Again my point is not about love of God for us, but our love for God, which is notably absent in the OT, but is an integral part of the Gospels.

It is not absent, the command to love God is in many places in the OT.

Joshua 23:11 (NASB)
“So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the LORD your God.

And my theory about this is that it is due to a lack of "something" to love; how does one "love" the unknown or indescribable?

God is not unknown or indescribable in the OT. ALL His attributes can be found in the OT - especially His love. God was very personal in His dealings with the Jews in the OT.

 

[ittarter]

Sorry to be a killjoy, but...

Counting the occurrences of the words "love" and "hate" and "wrath" and "mercy" will not yield any data we can use to conclude that Old Testament theology is more negative or positive than New Testament theology.

In both OT and NT there are clear rewards for doing right and clear punishments for doing wrong. In the NT and in some of the OT, some of these rewards are pushed off until the next life, and regularly in this life the faithful experience punishment.

Examined structurally, there is really no substantial difference that I can see.

Structurally, too, we might say that the OT is more "negative" than the NT because those who wrote the OT were still reeling from the destruction of the state of Israel and the temple -- in an important sense, Yhwh's abandoning of his people. Yet the Jewish community continues to anticipate deliverance and redemption. It is in this context that Jesus and Paul and Peter and John etc. preached.

So, in sum, the OT may be more "negative" because they were searching for a solution to a problem, and trying to uncover the nature of the problem. The NT has found and experienced the solution and is now merely doing house-keeping, so to speak, until the second Parousia of God.

In terms of the OP, I think it's an important distinction to make. With the church, "love" is inevitable, because that's what the church inherently does. With Israel, on the other hand, "love" is a truly open choice. The church can't NOT love God. Israel can either love God or not love God.

 

[papaJP]

I can only add that God is love and no true love can be without His love. It flows through us to the object that we want to direct it. All love flows from God through us to those we bless with this love. Anything else that we call love is fleshly and worldly love and not true love.

 

[Martinius]

I can only add that God is love and no true love can be without His love. It flows through us to the object that we want to direct it. All love flows from God through us to those we bless with this love. Anything else that we call love is fleshly and worldly love and not true love.

Thanks for your contribution. I agree with what you say about love. God is the source of all true love, and like God is unlimited and eternal.

But my question is about specifically loving God and how we do that. I think it is more than obedience to commandments since that can occur for other reasons that love (fear, respect, belonging). We seem to have a great history of statements about love for Jesus, both in scripture and without. But not as much about loving God "outside" of or excluding Jesus. As we have found, there seems to be only one place in the entire OT where we are told to love God. Why was that? Is it because it is difficult to have feelings of love for the unknown or ineffable, of which we do not have a true image?

 

[papaJP]

To love God you must know Him and not just about Him. Those who are His servant, friend, and child love Him without reservation. To try to understand why to love God is to question if you know God. God cannot be loved outside of Jesus as you put it because Jesus was God in the flesh. God is one who has manifested Himself to us as Father/Creator, Word Jesus the Son and Savior Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit.