Tuesday, August 12, 2008

How Much Do You Really Love God?

I tell myself that I love God. But how do I know how much I truly am loving God. In other words, is there a way to measure how much I love God? I believe so. I agree with Jerry Bridges when he says so in The Discipline of Grace (p123):

Jesus said, "He who has been forgiven little loves little" (Luke 7:47). In the context of that statement He essentially said the converse is also true: Those who have been forgiven much love much. Therefore, we can say that the extent to which we realize and acknowledge our own sinfulness, and the extent to which we realize the total forgiveness and cleansing from those sins, will determine the measure of our love to God.

I don't love God as I ought—with all of my heart, soul, and mind. The extent to which I realize and acknowledge my sinfulness is not vast: I tend to focus on particular areas and think that the others are okay or I euphemize my sins. The extent to which I actually—not just say I do— realize the total forgiveness and cleansing from my sinfulness is not great either: I tend to try to clean up my act in order to compensate for other areas of failure. So what am I to do? Bridges goes on to say:

So if we want to grow in our love for God and in the acceptable obedience that flows out of that love, we must keep coming back to the Cross and the cleansin blood of Jesus Christ. That is why it is so important that we keep the gospel before us every day. Because we sin every day, and our consciences condemn us every day, we need the gospel every day.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing Paul. It was an encouragement to me this morning!