Do you know how to love God? It is the greatest commandment, and most of us, if asked, will say we love Him, but do we demonstrate it as we should?
When I became a Christian and learned that I should love God, I thought it only had to do with feelings and emotions. And once I started having said feelings for Him, I thought that was it. But there’s more to love than feelings; actions are involved as well because that’s how we demonstrate our love.
The Bible tells us to love God and thankfully also tells us how to do it. So here is a list with five biblical ways to love God with actions.
1. Love God by knowing Him
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8
Loving God starts by knowing Him and having a relationship with Him. The Greek word for know in the New Testament is ginosko, and it means to come to know through personal experience. Therefore, knowing God is an intellectual as well as an experiential process.
You can come to know God intellectually by reading His Word, where He reveals Himself, His character, what He likes, don’t like, what He says about Himself, etc. And you can come to know Him experientially by spending time with Him and obeying His commandments ( 1 John 2:3).
2. Love God by obeying Him
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
1 John 5:3
The best way to demonstrate our love for God is by obeying Him. The Bible repeatedly equate loving Him with keeping His commandments as seen in John 14:15; John 14:21; 23-24, 1 John 2:5
Obedience is God’s love language. I don’t know if we can obey God without loving Him, but we certainly cannot love Him without obeying Him. Obedience proves our love for Him and also keeps us in it (John 15:10).
But obedience must be done with the right attitude. We are not to obey God reluctantly, out of fear, or in a legalistic way. Instead, we are to obey His commandments willingly and cheerfully; eagerly seeking to please Him and delight in doing His will.
3. Love God by worshipping Him
And Jesus answered him, “It is written,“ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’ ”
Luke 4:8
Worship is love expressed, and it is defined as “the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.” Worship is not reserved for Sunday mornings only; it should be present in our daily lives.
Worshipping God includes singing His praises through hymns and spiritual songs (Psalm 100:2), and also living and conducting ourselves in a holy and pleasing manner to Him (Romans 12:1). Our worship must be done in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24), and with reverence and awe (Hebrews 12:28).
But most importantly, we are to worship God alone, and nothing else in the world (1 John 2:15). He is to sit on the throne of our hearts and receive all our devotion and affection. As A.W Tozer said, “true worship is to be so personally and hopelessly in love with God, that the idea of a transfer of affection never even remotely exists.”
4. Put God first
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.
Matthew 22: 37-38
Loving God is making Him the priority in our lives and the center of our existence. The greatest commandment is to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we can do that by reserving the best of our emotions, feelings, intellect, thoughts, passion, will, abilities, and resources to Him. He is to come first before anyone else in our lives (Matthew 10:37-38).
Love one another
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:20
Lastly, loving God is the same as loving others. Others are your brothers and sisters, your neighbor, and even your enemies. You cannot love God without loving others; they are inseparable (1 John 5:1). Loving others also requires some actions on our part, and you can learn how to love one another here.
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18
We are created out of love and to love, and it’s essential we know how to do it right. Loving God is not natural to us, and we cannot begin to do it on our own. However, God graciously enables us through the power of the Holy Spirit to do it.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good place to start if you desire to love God more deeply, with actions and draw in a deeper relationship with Him.
Yes I will