Love of God
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” It is a very strong statement. Why is Jesus saying this? Because we have been created to love God above everything. This is our inner make up, our only way to be happy in the long run. We have to put God first, we need to centre ourselves around him. The Bible reminds us a few times of this, that “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.” Is this possible? Look at the saints. They did it, with the help of God. They gave their lives to God. Can you love a person more than to give your life for him or for her? Looking at the history of the Church we see many people have dedicated their lives to God. Unless we give ourselves to God, he is not going to give himself to us.
How much do I love God? How much are we ready to do for Him? Are we ready not to offend Him? Are we ready to do His will? Love is different from emotions and feelings. It is a matter of the will. We can choose who we want to love. It can be an attraction at the beginning, but afterwards there is a decision from the will. We love God with our intellect and will. We cannot love what we don’t know. The more we know God, the more we love Him. The more we discover who God is, the more we will fall in love with Him. There is nobody like God.
How do I love God? How do you love others? The same way we love people, we love God. We have only one heart. Some people think that we have two hearts, one to love God and another to love others. We can also think that to love a person we need to see that particular person. People love characters in their imagination, girls fall in love with actors they will never meet. We love our loved ones dedicating time to them, spending time with them, doing things for them, offering them gifts, telling them that they matter to us, giving ourselves to them, making sacrifices for them. It is the same with God.
Human love depends on another person. This person can let us down, become crazy, get tired of us, can find somebody else better than us. Divine love depends only on you; the ball is in your court. God is always willing. He is very patient, He is always there for us, ready to forgive and forget. We won’t find anybody else like Him. And yet we always keep looking for somebody else.
Do I know how to love? We think we do, but maybe we only know how to love ourselves. Love is an art that has to be learnt and practiced. With God we have to give first. We think that because He has everything, He is supposed to give us whatever we need. But as a good father, He doesn’t want to spoil us; He wants us to grow strong and mature. Therefore He expects us to give first. When we are generous with Him, He is much more generous with us. He always gives us what we need. And we cannot forget that true love requires time and dedication.
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