Love the Lord Your God 3. Loving God overflows into loving others.
If you love me “Feed my lambs. . . Tend my sheep. . . Feed my sheep.” John
Mark 12:28-34
If you don’t love God, you are missing out on
what life is all about!
1. God is unequaled in His worthiness to be loved.
For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Psalm
86:10
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above
all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord
made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and
beauty are in his sanctuary. Psalm 96:4-6
See what kind of love the Father has given us, that we should be called the
children of God; and so we are. . . We love because he first loved us. 1
John 3:1; 4:19
2. Loving God is a total devotion of one’s life.
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3
I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were
either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor
cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Revelation 3:15-16
21:15-17
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar, for he who
does not love his brother who he has seen cannot love God whom he has
not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God
must also love his brother. 1 John 4:20-21
Love your closet neighbor (Ephesians 5:25) and your worst enemy
(Matthew 5:44).
4. Loving God is the heart of what it means to be
Christian.
And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And
I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of
flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves
has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not
know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest
among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live
through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son to be the propitiation of our sins. . . If we love one
another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 1 John 4:7-12
And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow
cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 24:12-
13
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at
first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the
works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your
lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Revelation 2:4-5