Do We Truly Love God, Jesus His Son, and the Holy Spirit?
“If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scriptures . . .” James 2:8 King James Version (KJV).
We say oh, how we love you, Lord! We say oh, we love you, Jesus! Oh, you are the love of my life! Do we mean it? We should also say, Lord, teach us how to love you more and more. Teach us how to keep the fire of our first love growing stronger and stronger. Restore unto us that first love and let it burn in us like the fire at the altar that must always burn. “The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.” Leviticus 6:13 KJV
God the Father says much about how to love him. Jesus said much about what it truly means to love Him. And the Holy Spirit reveals to us also what it means to love him. In what follows, I will try to write some key scripture passages that answer what it truly means to love our Father in Heaven, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. The scriptures are so rich that all of them, with the types and shadows, make it impossible to summarize in such a short narrative. Many times we just need to let the Word of God speak to us rather than we try to describe spiritual matters with our own words.
Our Father in Heaven tells us to love Him with all our hearts, minds, and souls, to cleave to Him, and to walk in His statutes. To keep His Word foremost in our hearts and souls and to meditate upon His Word. To speak His Word and walk in His Ways. To act how he would act.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9 KJV: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.”
Deuteronomy 10:12-13 KJV: “And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?”
Deuteronomy 11:13, 18, 22: KJV: “And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul . . . Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes . . . For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him . . .”
Deuteronomy 13:4 KJV: “Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.”
Deuteronomy 30:16, 20 KJV: “In that I command thee this day to love the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments . . . That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him . . .”
Psalm 119:10-16 KJV: “With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes. With my lips have I declared all the judgments of thy mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.”
Psalm 119:97-100 KJV: "O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts."
Joshua 1:8 KJV: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”
1 John 2:15 KJV: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
1 John 2:5-6 KJV: “But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”
1 John 2:5 Wuest: "But whoever habitually with a solicitous care is keeping His word, truly, in this one the love of God has been brought to its completion with the present result that it is in that state of completion. In this we have an experiential knowledge that in Him we are.”
1 John 2:5 AMPC: “But he who keeps (treasures) His Word [who bears in mind His precepts, who observes His message in its entirety], truly in him has the love of and for God been perfected (completed, reached maturity). By this we may perceive (know, recognize, and be sure) that we are in Him.”
Jesus plainly revealed unto us how to love him and what we must do to show him our love.
John 14:15 KJV: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
John 14:23 KJV: “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”
John 15:10 KJV: “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
John 15:12-13 KJV: “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
2 John 1:6 KJV: “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, that, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it."
1 John 3:23-24 KJV: “And this is his commandment, that we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment. And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”
The Holy Spirit reveals some important points on what does it mean to love Him . . .
James 2:5 The Passion Translation: “Does the Scripture mean nothing to you that says, The Spirit that God breathed into our hearts is a jealous lover who intensely desires to have more and more of us?”
2 Corinthians 13:14 The Passion Translation: “Now, may the grace and joyous favor of the Lord Jesus Christ, the unambiguous love of God, and the precious communion that we share in the Holy Spirit be yours continually.”
Galatians 5:16 KJV: “Walk in the Spirit.”
Galatians 5:25 KJV: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”
Romans 8:14 TPT: “The mature children of God are those who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit.” Footnote: 8:14 The Greek is quite emphatic: “those and only those.”
Romans 8:14 Wuest: “For as many as are being constantly led by God's Spirit, these are sons of God.”
This is the best way say it: “The mature sons of God are those and only those who are constantly being led at every moment by the impulses of the Holy Spirit."
And two key scriptures on grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit . . .
Ephesians 4:30 The Passion Translation: “The Holy Spirit of God has sealed you in Jesus Christ until you experience your full salvation. So never grieve the Spirit of God or take for granted his holy influence in your life.”
I Thessalonians 5:19 The Passion Translation: “Never restrain or put out the fire of the Holy Spirit.”
We must yield to the Holy Spirit: recognize His leading; respect and reverence his voice and leading; and without hesitations, be quick to obey. Much more can be said, in short, let the Holy Spirit be the leader in ministry and in daily life. Much is written in the New Testament on how we should conduct our daily lives without grieving the Holy Spirit. And in the Gospels and Acts we see the pattern and model for Holy Spirit led ministry.
What must we do to show our love for our Father in Heaven, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?
2 Corinthians 2:8 Wuest: “Wherefore, I beg of you, please, that you confirm publicly and solemnly by a judicial decision your love for him.’
Revelation 2:4-5 AMPC: “But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love]. Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God’s will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent.”
Revelation 3:14-19 AMPC: “To the lukewarm church he says: So be enthusiastic and in earnest and burning with zeal and repent [changing your mind and attitude].”
We must be like Jesus and do what he modeled for us. The Apostles followed this pattern. The New Testament apostles and even Jesus described themselves as servants. The word servant is Strong's g1407. Greek word Doulos. It means bondslave. It is the most servile term in the New Testament. It speaks of one whose will is swallowed up in the will of another. It is a slave who is bound to his master unto death. He is one who has only the will of his master in mind. A bondslave does not belong to himself. He has no rights.
John 5:19 KJV: “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”
John 5:30 KJV: “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”
John 6:38 KJV: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”
John 12:49 KJV: “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.”
John 12:50 KJV: “. . . whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.”
As Jesus was sent, so are we:
John 17:18 and 20:21 KJV: “As thou [the Father] hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them [Disciples] into the world . . . As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”
John 15:4-5 KJV: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.”
What does it mean and what must we do?
The mature sons of God are those and only those who are constantly being led at every moment by the impulses of the Holy Spirit.
Yield to the Holy Spirit; be quick to obey the leading of the Holy Spirit; grieve and quench not the Holy Spirit; put the Word of God first in your life; feed on the Word of God day and night; meditate on the Word day and night; be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only; and walk in love as Jesus commanded us to walk in love.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 KJV
“If any man will come after me (Jesus), let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Matthew 16:24 KJV
