Are You Enjoying the Love of God?

What a confronting question!!

Confronting: adj. causing strong or difficult feelings, especially in a way that creates thought or discussion

Like I said…what a confronting question!!

I heard some teaching recently, and in it was an interesting take on the commands of God. The speaker used the example of love to make his point. He spoke of the ‘command chain’ in the Bible – that when there is a command, there is also a promise, power and an underlying truth.

So, with love in mind, in the Bible we are commanded to ‘love one another’ (1 Corinthians 16:14, 1 Peter 4:8).  Alongside this command we are promised we can love one another because Christ first loved us (John 15:12). We have the power to love others because God gave us the Holy Spirit (John 14:16) and the underlying truth to all this is that we are God’s beloved (Romans 5:6-8).

Coming back to the question, ‘Are you enjoying the love of God?’. You could rephrase that in a number of ways as a statement of this ‘command chain’:  

Enjoy the love of God!
You can enjoy the love of God.
Through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit you will enjoy the love of God.
You are God’s beloved!!

Now that has to be better than any cheesy Valentine’s Day card, right!?

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17 NIV

Music and sung worship is a great way of expressing our love to God and telling of his great love for us. Here are two songs that do just that:

How He Loves

When all of a sudden
I am unaware of these
Afflictions eclipsed by glory
And I realize how beautiful you are
And how great your affections for me
© David Crowder Band, 2009.

Click here to listen to How He Loves

Oh, The Deep Love of Jesus

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth,
Changes never, nevermore!
© Simon Khorolskiy, 2018

Click here to listen to Oh, The Deep Love of Jesus

Rachel is an Inspire Missioner based in the UK. She coordinates prayer across the Movement and co-directs the GB Core Team