Is loving God an emotion, a feeling, or a decision?

It is the outgoing of heart in delighting in God, and adoring Him for all He has done when we think of that, but flowing from what He is to us; and we are actually in His presence, never forgetting surely how we got there, for He has been manifested in that we have learned love and righteousness and holiness there, but as within, praising Him whom we have found, in our present relationship to Him.

A man may say in the face of all this, But suppose I do not feel it? Well, then, you are going back from faith, and looking to your feelings. How do I know that I have it? Am I perfect? No; the love is enjoyed within, but God has graciously put the proof of it without me; I know it, because I believe that Christ died for the ungodly. I am simply an ungodly one and have no strength at all, no feeling at all, and Christ died when I had no feeling at all. Christ died when- I had no strength, and could do nothing at all. The greatest thing in heaven was given for the worst thing on earth, a sinner. I am a sinner, therefore Christ died for me. "For scarcely for a righteous man would one die." This is what distinguishes God's love from man's: while man must have some motive on which to act, something to draw out his love, God's love, on the contrary, springs from Himself; for God could find no motive in us, we were hateful.

“We love because He has first loved us” (JND). This is a spontaneous, essential reaction. No human effort is involved in this at all, no pressing of myself, no stirring up of my emotions by artificial means. Love must be a spontaneous thing, or it is not love at all. “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake [my] love, till he please” (Song of Solomon 2:7). The roe, or gazelle, is the very picture of timid sensitivity, while the hind, climbing with sure‑footedness to heights above the common level, tells the same story, of avoiding the pressures of danger. Love cannot be produced from our own hearts by a process of stirring them up: this will fail, for our hearts are no fountain of love at all: we must look elsewhere: “we love because He first loved us.” The reception of the love of God is the only source of love toward God or toward others. Let us but believe His love to be what it actually is, and this produces a glad and willing response, unfeignedly, unaffectedly. The law says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself” (Luke 10:27). But every effort of man to do so only issues in utter defeat: it is against his nature. What is the use of putting all our energy into pumping to draw water from a well that yields only poison gas? Let us forget such a well as our own corrupted hearts, and turn to the living, flowing fountain of the heart of God; and without effort, without human operation, our hearts will become filled with His love.

In chapter 2:9, you get a wonderful characteristic of those that are of God, “in Christ Jesus;” they “love Him.” In the cross the love has been expressed, and we have known and believed it, and love Him because He first loved us. Perhaps we are rather prone to think of our love to God, and may be often lamenting that we love Him so little; but it was His love to us expressed in the death of Christ that awoke love in our hearts to Him, and it is occupation with that great and blessed love of His that strengthens our poor, feeble love to Him, for feeble it is at beet. Perhaps you say, I enjoy His love to me but little, and I greatly grieve over it. But do you know that you may enjoy it a very great deal more if you go the right way about it. Do not imagine that you can work yourself up into any state of religious fervour which will make you more sensible of His love to you. No, let me say to you what I would say to my own heart as to this, “Get to the Lord about it.” Tell Him everything. All about your coldness and hardness of heart and want of interest in His things, and tell Him you want to know the love of God better, and do not say it all as a formal prayer, but let it be the cry of a heart yearning after Himself, and I know what He will do for you; He will take you by the hand and lead you into the warm sunshine of that love till its beams shall quicken that poor dead heart of yours into life and joy unspeakable. The apostle says, “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God.” Who else could do it? You cannot command your heart’s affection. You cannot love anyone by force of will. You have not control of your love. It is only as you enjoy the love of God that you will love Him, and no one can lead you into the enjoyment of that love but the Lord, and He has the utmost delight in doing this for His own enjoyment. You say, I have been wishing my heart were not so hard, and I have been troubled about it. My only answer is, get into the Lord’s presence. Go direct to Himself. You will find Him gracious. Get into His company, leave man, leave earthly associations, get away from the presence even of the people of God for a little; go to your own room, anywhere, so you are alone, and have all out in His presence, and He will surprise you with what He will do for you.

And I know all now by the Holy Ghost, so that I abound in hope by the power of the Holy Ghost. There are two kinds of happiness. There is the happiness of hope that we have; and what is the other kind? Rest in perfect affection; God loves me as He loves Jesus, and I rest in that. To talk about our love to anyone is no proof of love. The deepest affection may shew itself, but is not loquacious about itself, at least when it confides in its object; nor is the declaration of our great love a proof that all love much, nor complaint of our want of affection a proof that love is wanting, though it may be often that we are thinking too much about it. If there be confidence, the heart rests in the value of the love of the one confided in, and rests in thinking of its object, which is true affection. Supposing a child told me, "I love my mother quite enough," I say, "You are an unfortunate wight; you do not love your mother a bit if you say that." But suppose a child says, If you only knew my mother, her unwearied love, her patience with me, and I often so foolish, forgetting her wishes! I made a noise when she was sick, and yet her love never falters, never wearies; I say, That child loves its mother. When I have a sense of the love that outreaches all my thoughts, and thank and bless and wonder and adore at its greatness, and in the sense of it, my heart thinking of Him - that is love to God. But, if I look into my own heart (I do not speak of judging known failure) and measure my love, and complain of my not loving God, in such case you are under law as to it. The law required it, and necessarily and rightly: but that is law. "Herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us." Hence too, when our loving Him is spoken of in 1 John 4, it is not said we ought to love Him, true as it may be, but we love Him because He first loved us.

Movement Godward springs from the affections and that may be why the heart is put first. Approach to God involves more my loving God than my knowledge of His will. One would not despise the mind, for we cannot know anything apart from it, but what we learn ought to affect us in our hearts, and this will lead to a response to God.

Blessed fact! Blessed relationship! But Israel had to be reminded of the conduct suited to such a relationship — conduct which could only flow from a loving heart. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Here lies the secret of all true practical religion. Without this all is valueless to God. "My son, give me thine heart." Where the heart is given, all will be right. The heart may be compared to the regulator of a watch which acts on the hair-spring, and the hair-spring acts on the main-spring, and the main-spring acts on the hands, as they move round the dial. If your watch goes wrong, it will not do merely to alter the hands, you must touch the regulator. God looks for real heart-work, blessed be His Name! His word to us is, "My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."

Yet also, if love is to be exercised in proper moral balance, this requires "knowledge and all judgment." Love must not remain ignorant of the true needs of its objects; and it must also have discernment as to the godly means of meeting those needs. Thus it has far greater scope than the mere feeling of affection. 1 Cor.13:4-7 lists some of the solid characteristics of love: it is well worth our quiet meditation.

The third point is love. We can easily see that verse 11 speaks of this: ‘Take great heed therefore unto your souls, that ye love Jehovah your God’. Joshua underlines the personal responsibility we have and the importance of loving our Lord Jesus. It is true that we like to be occupied with the divine love towards us. The fact that we are ‘beloved ones’ (loved by the Father and the Son) is indeed something that surpasses every human understanding and imagination. But the Bible speaks in the Old as well as in the New Testament of our love to God and to the Lord Jesus. David put it in black and white one day when he made that wonderful love declaration: ‘I will love thee, O Jehovah, my strength’ (Ps. 18:1). Peter, after having been asked by the Lord Jesus Himself whether he loved Him, speaks more than once about his love to the Lord Jesus and in his first epistle he writes: ‘whom, having not seen, ye love’ (1 Pet. 1:8). Is there any child of God who would not love God the Father and the Lord Jesus?

Now, what does it mean to love the Lord? Does it simply mean to speak or sing about our love to Him and to praise Him? Is it a confession we make in prayer? All this is of course not excluded but it is not the main point. To love someone does not first of all mean to tell about it but much more to show it. To really love someone means to love to experience fellowship with him and to be at his disposal whenever needed, to offer one’s service. When God loved us He proved His love by giving us His beloved Son. In His divine love He did not spare Him. When the Lord Jesus loved us He gave Himself for us. If we really love our Lord this will be seen in what we do. The Apostle John puts it this way: ‘Children, let us not love with word, nor with tongue, but in deed and in truth’ (1 John 3:18). To love the Lord Jesus has to do with our service to Him. He Himself is the perfect example. When down on earth He declared: ‘but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do’ (John 14:31). True love is proved by obedience. And that brings us back to our first point. Christian obedience in its true character is motivated by love. That is the highest level of obedience.

If we add to this that nine of the ten commandments forbid positive sins and evil dispositions, because men are disposed to them, or there were no need to prohibit them, we shall find that the very nature and existence of a law which prescribes the good on God's authority supposes the evil in man's nature which is opposed to it. This is a deplorable truth, take either aspect of the case. You cannot command love, that is, produce it by commanding it, and you cannot put out lusts by forbidding them to a nature which has them as nature. Yet this is what the law does, and must do if God give one. It proves that what is forbidden is sin, and that it is in man to be forbidden; but it never takes sin away. It prescribes good in the creature but does not produce it. It shews what is right on earth in the creature, but how far is it from taking man into heavenly places! It can have no pretension to this.