Choose Love (17 page)

There was a large Bible in our house that, to my knowledge, had not been opened for years. When I was about fourteen, we moved to another town and my mother tried harder to be normal. It was as though she was attempting to make a new start. She and I attended a little Episcopal church where we even sang in the choir. I saw her open up that Bible a few times and read it, although I was never tempted to do that myself. It bordered on a semi-positive experience until the day she stormed into the living room, opened up the back door, and threw the Bible out in the dirt in the backyard. And that was the end of the Bible and the church. She could only keep it together for so long before she became mad at God. Then she descended back into her dark and violent world. Sadly, she never knew the love and power of God that can heal and transform. That’s what happens when the Holy Spirit is totally left out of the equation and God is misunderstood.

Aside from that brief experience, I never actually learned what the Bible said. Had I been instructed specifically in the ways of God, I could have avoided the horrible mistakes I made. Although much can be learned by both observation and experience, having even the most basic foundation in God’s Word would have made all the difference in my being able to avoid the foolish and dangerous things I did.

There are so many important things we will never learn anywhere else except from God’s Word. That’s because every time we read or hear God’s Word with an open heart and spiritually opened eyes, a transformative dynamic happens in the process.

The truth is, we become slaves to whomever we obey. We can either become a slave to our own sin or a slave to the Lord and His ways. If we don’t know the Lord’s ways, what is the end result?

Some people mistakenly believe they are “free” and therefore not restricted by God’s rules and laws, but they are actually enslaved by their own greed, lust, obsessions, indulgence, self-focus, bitterness,
unforgiveness, bad habits, apathy, anger, or whatever else is not God’s will for them. The Bible says we “
were slaves of sin,
” but when we received the Lord we were set free to become “
slaves of righteousness
” (Romans 6:17-18).

Our love for God—and expression of that love to Him—establishes our foundation in Christ and allows us to become slaves to His righteousness.

That is
true freedom
.

Show Love for God by Living His Way

Reading the Bible is like looking into the magnifying mirror I described in the first chapter. That is exactly the way an in-depth reading of God’s Word exposes the imperfections in us. The more we seek God in His Word, the more He shows us where we need to become more like
Him
. Every time we look into His Word, He not only reveals more of who
He is
, but He also shows us more of who
we are.
He then grows us to reflect His nature and character.

If we live according to His Word, we gain His favor because of our obedience. “
The L
ORD
rewarded me according to my righteousness
; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me. For I
have kept the ways of the L
ORD
, and have not wickedly departed from my God” (Psalm 18:20-21).

Jesus made it clear that living His way demonstrates our love for Him
.

He said, “
He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me
. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him… If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and
We will come to him and make Our home with him
” (John 14:21,23).

There is a clear connection between our obedience to God’s Word and God’s presence in our lives. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will make their home with us when we show our love for God by keeping His commandments.

It can’t get any clearer than that.

We read the Bible not just for information but for revelation from God. Every time we read His Word we can sense His presence. And when we become familiar with God’s voice speaking to us from His Word, we will then be able to recognize His voice speaking to our heart when we are
not
reading his Word at that moment.

John, the brother of Jesus, said, “
This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments
. And His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

His commandments are not too hard because He helps us to do them when we ask Him to.

Show Love for God by Asking Him to Help You
Do
His Word

Another great thing God does for us is that He not only gives us His guide to a
good
life—His commandments, rules, precepts, and laws—but He also
helps
us to obey them.

God enables us to live His way when we ask Him to do so.

He knows our weaknesses and that we end up doing things we don’t want to do because of them. But when we make it our
desire
and
delight
to do His Word, it pleases Him because it demonstrates our love for Him.

“
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only
, deceiving yourselves. For
if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror
, for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was” (James 1:22-24).

There is that mirror illustration again.

If we only hear the Word and don’t
do
it, we not only cannot see our true selves reflected clearly, we don’t really understand who God made us to be. But if we look
“into the perfect law of liberty”
and are
“not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work”
we will be blessed in all we do (James 1:25).

That means we can forget who we are when we just hear or read God’s laws. It’s in the
doing
of them that our knowledge of God’s Word takes root and we come to understand who He created us to be.

God’s laws ignite our conscience. We have a battle going on between our new nature and our old nature (Romans 7:19-25). Our flesh wants to do what it wants even though our mind wants to obey God.

Jesus questioned why people called Him “Lord” and didn’t do what He asked them to do (Luke 6:46). We obviously don’t have the right to call Him Lord if we are not living
His
way. Our rebellion against His laws means He doesn’t really have the place of prominence in our heart and life.

We show love for God by refusing to live in disobedience to Him and also by recognizing we
can’t
live His way without Him
helping
us to do so.

Paul warns that we can’t resist lust and idolatry without the power of God giving us strength. When we ask Him, He will enable us to do the right thing. Paul said, “
Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall
. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but
with the temptation will also make the way of escape
, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:12-13).

We can choose to obey, but it is the power of the Holy Spirit in us that enables us to do it. With His power working in us, we can resist anything.

Show Love for God by Refusing to Create Your Own Suffering

I have often cited King David’s life examples in this book because he was a real and fallible human being who had a loving heart toward God and wanted to do right, but he fell into temptation to not live God’s way and experienced needless suffering because of it. There are other people in the Bible like that as well, but they didn’t write about their feelings and experiences in clear, deep, and relatable ways as much as David did. When he repented of what he had done, it was deeply heartfelt—often gut wrenchingly so—and God forgave him.

He was a lot like we are. We bring needless suffering upon ourselves too.

While we may have never done anything as bad as David, we certainly have had need for repentance in our lives.

David recognized that his suffering was because of his own disobedience and he was drowning in the consequences. “
My iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me
. My wounds are foul and festering because of my foolishness.
I am troubled
, I am bowed down greatly;
I go mourning
all the day long” (Psalm 38:4-6). “
My iniquities have overtaken me
, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head;
therefore my heart fails me
” (Psalm 40:12).

A burden too heavy to bear, festering wounds, sorrow, guilt, mourning, and heart failure, all because of unconfessed sin? It’s not worth it. Let’s repent as soon as possible. Let’s ask God to etch His law in our heart like a tattoo so we don’t ever leave home without it.

David often thought God didn’t see or hear him anymore because of his failure to live God’s way. But God
did
hear David’s prayers because of his repentant heart. “I said in my haste, ‘I am cut off from before Your eyes’; nevertheless You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried out to You” (Psalm 31:22).

God loves us enough to allow us to go through the fire when He wants to purify us. He allows us to go through floodwaters, which cleanse us. He lets us suffer when it will mold our heart for His kingdom. “You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined…
we went through fire and through water; but You brought us out to rich fulfillment
” (Psalm 66:10,12).

How many times have we, too, said, “God doesn’t hear my prayers. He doesn’t see my need”? The truth is that He
does
hear and He
does
see, but sometimes we have unconfessed and unrepented sin, such as doubt, unforgiveness, unresolved anger, lying… the list is endless. We have to ask Him to show us.

Sometimes it’s not a sin problem. It’s just that God wants us to wait on Him in faith for the answers to our prayers. So we must ask Him in those times if He is perhaps waiting on
us
for something. Waiting on us to obey Him? Waiting on us to hear His leading? Waiting on us to lay down our idols? Or is He testing our faith and obedience?

David asked who could dwell with God and then answered his own question by saying, “He who
walks uprightly
, and
works righteousness
, and
speaks the truth in his heart
” (Psalm 15:2). Ask God if you are always speaking truth in your heart. The way to keep your heart from becoming deceitful is to wash it daily in the Word.

Scripture says that God guides us with His eye (Psalm 32:8). If He is to guide us with His eye, that means we have to be looking to Him.

That means we have to be looking into His Word as well.

Show Love for God by Asking Him to Reveal What Is in Your Heart

Because we cannot always see our own sins, we need to ask God to reveal them to us. “
Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults
” (Psalm 19:12). God hates sin and we don’t want something in our lives that God hates. Getting rid of sin is one of the most important ways we show our love for Him. That’s the way we keep from doing something we are tempted to do.

We love God too much to allow it to happen.

We show love for God by asking him to show us anything in our heart that should not be there. David said, “
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
try me, and know my anxieties;
and see if there is any wicked way in me
, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24).

God showed David what was in his heart just as he asked. The trouble was that too often David should have asked much sooner than he did. He should have asked the night he was up on his roof
watching the woman next door take a bath. Actually, he shouldn’t have been there that night in the first place. He was supposed to be out on the battlefield with his soldiers at war.

When God revealed what was in David’s heart, he repented and God forgave him. But he should have done so sooner.

We can also ask God to reveal what is in our heart as we read His Word. And we can ask Him to help us be free of whatever is not of Him.

Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And
you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free
” (John 8:31-32).

This doesn’t mean we are set free by just
any
truth. We can know the truth about a lot of things and never get free of anything. Only knowing
God’s
truth truly sets us free.

In order to be set free by God’s truth, His Word must be planted in our heart. God’s Word says to “
receive with meekness the implanted word,
which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). If we water, nourish, and cherish the implanted Word, it will grow into great strength, wisdom, courage, and a sense of what’s right.

Jesus also said, “
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love,
just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:10-11).