The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"A Willed Love"
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"One does not have to be a believer for long until he recognizes that a "willed love" most characterizes our walk with God. As David well knew, "I will love Thee" requires the presence and working of "O Lord, my strength."
"I will love Thee, o Lord my strength" (Psalm 18:1).
Love, as defined by God, encompasses every aspect of our life and being. He calls us to know and receive His love into the entirety of our existence, and to return His love accordingly.
"The love of God is shed abroad (abundantly poured out) in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment" (Mark 12:30).
Clearly, this involves far more than the emotional expression which the world primarily defines as love. Feeling certainly constitutes an aspect of love - "Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children" (Ephesians 5:1; emphasis added). However, emotion can never be viewed as central in our Lord's love toward us, nor of our response toward Him. God loves us according to the entirety of His being, character, nature, and way. His subsequent willing to love us matters every bit as much as His feeling of love for us. In the same manner, His love poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit will lead us to both volition and emotion in our devotion to God.
One does not have to be a believer for long until he recognizes that a "willed love" most characterizes our walk with God. As David well knew, "I will love Thee" requires the presence and working of "O Lord, my strength." Mere human devotion, dedication, and discipline can never possibly attain to the standard of love God defines, commands, and dispenses into our hearts. He must empower our response of love to Him, which He does as we trust and submit to His glory and will. We live for God by living from God. Thereby, He receives all glory, while we also play an active role of response wherein our love for Him is real, uncoerced, and thus meaningful to our Lord and ourselves. Indeed, our times of most devoted love for God often occur when we do not feel devotion, but nevertheless respond to Him by trusting His grace to empower our response to Him. "The grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 1:14).
The Psalmist perfectly expressed the nature of loving relationship with God in his expression of determination, as coupled with acknowledgement of need for the Lord's enabling to to love. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed for the Father's grace to draw us into the wonder of such devotion: "I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:26). Our Savior then suffered, died, and rose again to make such a gift possible. His willed love results in our own capacity to respond to God in kind. Yes, "I will love Thee, o Lord, o Lord my strength" guided Christ's devotion to His Father. It will guide us as we look to the Lord Jesus, trusting Him to walk in us as promised, empowering our own willed love, and the enabling to…
"Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savor."
(Ephesians 5:2)
Weekly Memory Verse
Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? he retaineth not His anger forever, because He delighteth in mercy.
(Micah 7:18)
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