← How to Love God
Contents · 9 / 57
  1. Opening Scripture
  2. Preface
  3. How to Use This Book
  4. Study Features and Diagrams
  5. The Greatest Commandment
  6. What Does It Mean to Love God?
  7. With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength
  8. Why God Is Worthy of Our Love
  9. We Love Because He First Loved Us
  10. The Gospel and the Transformation of Love
  11. Why We Do Not Naturally Love God
  12. A New Heart That Loves God
  13. Seeing the Glory of God in Christ
  14. Justification, Assurance, and Love
  15. Love, Emotion, and Obedience
  16. Is Love for God an Emotion?
  17. If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments
  18. Loving God When You Do Not Feel Love
  19. Duty, Delight, and the Formation of Holy Affections
  20. The Practices Through Which Love Grows
  21. Knowing God Through Scripture
  22. Loving God Through Prayer
  23. Worship, Praise, and the Lord's Day
  24. Repentance and the Restoration of Fellowship
  25. Obedience in Ordinary Life
  26. Loving God by Loving People
  27. Evangelism, Mission, and Love for God
  28. Loving God Through Suffering
  29. Obstacles, Counterfeits, and Spiritual Warfare
  30. Idolatry and Rival Loves
  31. Legalism, Moralism, and Religious Performance
  32. Emotionalism and the Search for Spiritual Experiences
  33. Distraction, Busyness, and Digital Formation
  34. Temptation, Spiritual Warfare, and Perseverance
  35. Growing in Mature Love
  36. Love and the Fear of God
  37. Loving God With the Mind
  38. Loving God in Community
  39. A Lifetime of Loving God
  40. The Eternal Enjoyment of God
  41. Study and Practice Resources
  42. Key Bible Passages About Loving God
  43. Frequently Asked Questions
  44. Thirty Days: Growing in Love for God
  45. Seven Days for Spiritual Coldness
  46. Why Does God Feel Distant? A Diagnostic Guide
  47. A Flexible Rule of Life
  48. Prayers for Growing in Love
  49. Small-Group Study Guide
  50. Personal Spiritual Assessment
  51. Pastoral Case Studies
  52. Glossary
  53. Recommended Resources
  54. Endnotes, Source Notes, and Bibliography
  55. Scripture Index
  56. Subject Index
  57. Final Exhortation

The Greatest Commandment

We Love Because He First Loved Us

~4 min read

Is our love the beginning of the relationship, or an answer to grace already given?

Key passages

Deuteronomy 7:6–11; Romans 5:1–11; John 3:16–21; 1 John 4:7–21; Ephesians 1:3–14.

Chapter thesis

Christian love for God is responsive. The Father loved and chose, the Son gave himself for sinners, and the Spirit makes that love known and fruitful in the heart.

Grace precedes response

First John defines the order decisively: love is not first our movement toward God but God’s movement toward us in sending his Son as the atoning sacrifice for sin. Human love is real and commanded, but it is derivative. We love because he first loved us.

This destroys boasting. No Christian may look at an unbeliever and imagine that superior natural tenderness produced salvation. The decisive difference is mercy. It also destroys despairing self-salvation. A believer with weak affection is not told to present stronger feelings as payment. He is told to look outside himself to Christ’s completed work.

Love demonstrated at the cross

Romans 5 locates divine love in history: while people were weak, ungodly, sinners, and enemies, Christ died for them. The cross is not a vague symbol that love wins. It is the self-giving of the Son under the righteous judgment sin deserves, reconciling enemies to God.

This means divine love is not mere affirmation. God loves sinners too truly to call evil good. He deals with guilt, defeats condemnation, and begins renewal. Love and holiness meet in Christ.

The believer should therefore measure God’s love primarily by the cross, not by changing circumstances. Prosperity may be removed, prayers may be delayed, and suffering may remain mysterious. The crucified and risen Christ is the objective pledge that God has not treated his people with indifference.

Justification, reconciliation, and adoption

Romans 5 begins with justification by faith: the believer has peace with God and access to grace. The relationship is not held together by daily success. The verdict rests on Christ’s righteousness and sacrifice. From this security comes rejoicing in God.

The New Testament also speaks of reconciliation and adoption. Enemies are brought near; slaves receive the Spirit of sonship; believers cry, “Abba, Father.” Love for God is therefore not only respect for a judge who acquitted us. It is the growing love of children who have been brought into the household through the Son.

The Spirit pours love into the heart

Romans 5 says God’s love is poured into believers’ hearts through the Holy Spirit. This includes assurance of God’s love and the transformation that follows from it. The Spirit does not bypass truth; he illumines the gospel, bears witness to adoption, produces fruit, empowers mortification, and directs attention to Christ.

When you ask for greater love, you are asking for something God delights to produce through his appointed means. The prayer is neither passive nor self-reliant: “Show me Christ; incline my heart; work in me both willing and doing.”

Regeneration by the Spirit

God’s character and grace

Revelation in Christ

Faith and assurance Love, worship, obedience Love for others and mission

Voice from the church: Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon summarized the order memorably: love to God grows from the love of God. His best sermons direct cold believers away from emotional manufacture and toward Christ who loved and gave himself. The qualification is that looking to the cross is not merely repeating a slogan; it includes hearing the whole biblical gospel, repenting, believing, and walking in the Spirit.

Important distinction

God’s love is the source; our love is the fruit. The fruit matters. First John will not allow a claim to divine love that produces settled hatred of brothers and sisters. But fruit must never be turned into the root of justification.

Receiving before resolving

Many believers begin spiritual renewal with resolutions: longer prayer, stricter routines, greater sacrifice. Discipline may be needed, but the gospel begins with receiv-

ing. Before asking, “What will I do for God?” ask, “What has God done in Christ, and do I believe it?”

Receiving is not inactivity. Faith comes to Christ, rests on his promise, confesses sin, and then works through love. The Christian life repeatedly returns to this order: grace, faith, gratitude, obedience.

Chapter summary

The greatest commandment is answered only within the gospel. God’s electing, redeeming, reconciling, adopting, and indwelling love precedes and produces our responsive love. We fight for holiness from acceptance in Christ, not to purchase it.

Reflect and discuss

  1. When you feel spiritually weak, do you look first to Christ or first to the quality of your own response?

  2. How does Romans 5 redefine the evidence of God’s love during suffering?

  3. Where have you turned obedience into payment rather than gratitude?

Practice for this week

Read Romans 5:1–11 daily. List what is objectively true of the believer before recording any feeling. End by thanking God for one aspect of reconciliation.

Prayer

Father, I did not begin this love. You loved sinners and sent your Son. Ground me again in Christ’s finished work. Pour the knowledge of your love into my heart by the Holy Spirit, and make gratitude fruitful in holiness and love. Amen.