How can I love God?
Most Christians know that obeying God is one way of showing love to him. But is there more? Is there a way of nurturing a true heart-to-heart love of the Lord?
Emily Lawyer, author of a short e-book Enough Already, says she stumbled across a way to love God through meditation and prayer while going through a couple of personal crises a few years ago.
The result, she says, is that her life has been transformed. She has changed and the people she has shared this method with have been changed, too.
A pastor by training, Lawyer says she has seen people who struggled with reading the Bible become excited as they started looking for Jesus in the scriptures and then reflecting on what they found.
What Lawyer found was that God's grace and love are boundless. And looking at his character - and appreciating it - helped her enjoy his love and bring about change in her life.
Most Christians, she says, feel that God wants them to meet certain standards of behaviour.
She noted an instructor asked an adult Sunday School class what they thought Jesus would say to them if he visited their class that day. Most said they thought he would tell them to do better.
"Not one person . . . said anything about Jesus affirming His fierce love for them."
Christians have largely missed the truth that "change is the byproduct, not the goal," she says. "Relationship is the goal."
In other words, our love relationship with Jesus is what we should be seeking. Out of our love for him, we will become more like him.
Lawyer changed the way she read scripture. Instead of asking what it told her to do, she started asking: "What does this make me appreciate about God?"
"The more you know someone, and find good character within, the more
you’re inclined to trust him," she writes. "The same applies to our relationship with God."
"It is virtually impossible to get to know the true God without falling more in love with Him," Lawyer adds. "And the more you believe that He loves you, the more you’ll trust and obey."
So, she launched several small groups using a three-step method:
Participants chose a scripture verse that caught their attention and then wrote a line or two in their prayer journals expressing their appreciation of God.Most Christians know that obeying God is one way of showing love to him. But is there more? Is there a way of nurturing a true heart-to-heart love of the Lord?
Emily Lawyer, author of a short e-book Enough Already, says she stumbled across a way to love God through meditation and prayer while going through a couple of personal crises a few years ago.
The result, she says, is that her life has been transformed. She has changed and the people she has shared this method with have been changed, too.
A pastor by training, Lawyer says she has seen people who struggled with reading the Bible become excited as they started looking for Jesus in the scriptures and then reflecting on what they found.
What Lawyer found was that God's grace and love are boundless. And looking at his character - and appreciating it - helped her enjoy his love and bring about change in her life.
Most Christians, she says, feel that God wants them to meet certain standards of behaviour.
She noted an instructor asked an adult Sunday School class what they thought Jesus would say to them if he visited their class that day. Most said they thought he would tell them to do better.
"Not one person . . . said anything about Jesus affirming His fierce love for them."
Christians have largely missed the truth that "change is the byproduct, not the goal," she says. "Relationship is the goal."
In other words, our love relationship with Jesus is what we should be seeking. Out of our love for him, we will become more like him.
Lawyer changed the way she read scripture. Instead of asking what it told her to do, she started asking: "What does this make me appreciate about God?"
"The more you know someone, and find good character within, the more
you’re inclined to trust him," she writes. "The same applies to our relationship with God."
"It is virtually impossible to get to know the true God without falling more in love with Him," Lawyer adds. "And the more you believe that He loves you, the more you’ll trust and obey."
So, she launched several small groups using a three-step method:
- Pray for God to show you what he wants you to see;
- Choose a passage of scripture; and
- Silently read looking through the lens of “What does this make me
appreciate about God?” and then journal that truth.
An example she gave was Jesus, filled with compassion, telling a widow whose son had just died: "Don't cry!" And then he raised the boy from the dead (Luke 7:11-15).
Her response was appreciation for his compassion, for sharing the widow's hurts, and for making people the highest importance in his mission.
I am now incorporating Lawyer's approach in my own scripture reading and prayer.
You can find Lawyer's e-book on the Exponential web-site at exponential.org. Here is the link to the book: https://www.exponential.org/resource-ebooks/enough-already/
A book that had a deep impact on Lawyer was Alex Aronis' Developing Intimacy with God, a book I have just bought. I will likely explore this theme further in later posts.
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