What Does It Mean To Love God?
How may we know whether we love God? (cont.)
(6) He who loves God, prefers Him before estate and life.
[1] Before estate. “For whom I have suffered the loss of all things.” Phil 3:8. Who that loves a rich jewel, would not part with a flower for it? Galeacius, marquis of Vico, parted with a large estate to enjoy God in his pure ordinances. When a Jesuit persuaded him to return to his popish religion in Italy, promising him a large sum of money, he said, “Let their money perish with them who esteem all the gold in the world worth one day’s communion with Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit.”
[2] Before life. “They loved not their lives unto the death.” Rev 12:2: Love to God carries the soul above the love of life and the fear of death.
(7) He who loves God loves his favorites, the saints.
1 John 5:1. “The mind reacts to the likeness of an object just as it does to the object itself.” To love a man for his grace, and the more we see of God in him, the more we love him, is an infallible sign of love to God. The wicked pretend to love God – but hate and persecute his image. Does he love his prince, who abuses his statue, or tears his picture? They seem indeed to show great reverence to saints departed; they have great reverence for Paul, and Stephen, and Luke; they canonize dead saints – but persecute living saints; and do they love God? Can it be imagined that he loves God – who hates his children because they are like him? If Christ were alive again, he would not escape a second persecution.
(8) If we love God, we cannot but be fearful of dishonoring Him, as the more a child loves his father the more he is afraid to displease him, and we weep and mourn when we have offended him. “Peter went out and wept bitterly.” Matt 26:75. Peter might well think that Christ dearly loved him when he took him up to the mount where he was transfigured, and showed him the glory of heaven in a vision. That he should deny Christ after he had received such signal tokens of his love, broke his heart with grief. “He wept bitterly.” Are our eyes dropping tears of grief for sin against God? It is a blessed evidence of our love to God; and such shall find mercy. “He shows mercy to thousands of those who love him.”
Use. Let us be lovers of God. We love our food, and shall we not love him who gives it? All the joy we hope for in heaven, is in God; and shall not he who shall be our joy then, be our love now? It is a saying of Augustine, “Is it not punishment enough, Lord, not to love you?” And again, “I would hate my own soul if I did not find it loving God.”
– Thomas Watson (1620–1686) – an English, Nonconformist, Puritan preacher and author.
(… to be continued next week, DV)