May 9. What it means to love God.

O God, you are my God.

Earnestly I seek you.

My soul thirsts for you, my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land, where there's no water.

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power

and glory. Psalm 63, 1 and 2. Only God will satisfy a heart like David's. And David was a man

after God's own heart. That's the way we were created to be.

This is the essence of what it means to love God, to be satisfied in him, in him, not just his gifts,

but God himself as the glorious person that he is.

Loving God will include obeying all his commandments,

it will include believing all his word,

it will include thanking him for all his gifts,

but all of that is overflow.

The essence of loving God is admiring and enjoying all he is.

And it is this enjoyment of God that makes all of our other responses truly glorifying to him.

We all know this intuitively, as well as from Scripture.

Do we feel most honored by the love of those who serve us from the constraints of duty,

or from the delights of fellowship.

My wife is most honored when I say,

it makes me happy to spend time with you.

My happiness is the echo of her excellence.

And so it is with God.

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