Evan writes in to ask Pastor John, I have a follow-up question from episode number 326.

I have troubled distinguishing the difference between loving God and loving theology or loving

God and just loving loving God.

Can you give some practical tips to make sure I am truly loving God and not just loving

the theology about him?

Pastor John, how would you make this distinction tangible for Evan?

Well, my first response to Evan is that the fact that you care about that, that you even

can articulate it that way is a very good sign and I'm encouraged that God has done enough

in your life so that you're not blindly going on loving loving God without really loving God

because you know the difference between the two.

But as I thought about this, at least four practical tests for you and anybody, really all of us,

to test whether we are just fascinated with theology about God or whether we really love God.

Test number one, is your love for God and your vision of God through the theology

changing your life at the practical root.

What you do, what you love to do, what you're entertained by, what your preferences are,

the way you treat people, are you patient?

Are you killing sin by the Spirit?

Are you bearing the fruits of the Spirit?

In other words, holiness of life is the mark of authentic faith in and through good

theology. You can have a good theology and be a rotten person and so it's the person who gets

changed by authentic faith through right theology. James said faith without works is dead and so

if we're not being changed from the inside out, then probably we're playing games.

...