What does loving God mean to you or better yet how do you go about it? There was a book put out sometime ago by Chuck Colson that was called, Loving God. The very first section was titled, “Obedience.” I never did like that start because, and this is hugely important, love does not start with obedience. You see, obedience without love is duty. It’s the form without substance; and it’s where all religion goes wrong. So how do you go about loving God?
 
Recently Francis Chan wrote a book about loving God and started with who God is and what things He’s done for us. I found this to be a much more appropriate start, so that when Francis moved into obedience it was clear that obedience grew out of love as opposed to being the start of love. But I want to push it even further.
 
If you truly love God then it needs to be passionate, a driving motivator, something bigger than anything else in your life. You can love God a little and He will be a part of your life; you can love God a lot and He will affect your life; or you can love God passionately and He will be your life. Don’t we all want to love God passionately? But how do I get passionate about God, since I’m not right now? How do I serve God with my whole heart when I am so half-hearted about it now? I am desperately seeking to love God as He whispers sweet promises to my heart and woos me like the beloved He refers to me as in the Holy Bible.
 
Are you passionate about God? Or are you seeking to love Him more? All I can say for sure right now is just keep talking to God. He loves you so much and He will woo you, just like He’s wooing me.
 
Philippians 1:6 (NET Bible)
For I am sure of this very thing, that the one who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

Many years ago I read a book about a Christian man who was in prison, I assume for his faith but I don't remember, who led another prisoner to the Lord. After the other prisoner said the salvation prayer, he spent three days and nights pacing in his cell, crying out to God until he finally knew he was saved. If I'm remembering the story correctly, the author thought it was an evidence of the accumulated prayers of previous generations that in his lifetime this struggle was no longer necessary but that people were able to embrace their salvation after a simple prayer. I would like to propose that, while many do have a true conversion experience that is concluded with a simple prayer of repentance, many more are led to believe that they've had a true conversion experience when all they've done is acknowledged with their minds that God is God.

A true conversion experience is a change of heart and without a change of heart there is not true conversion. I have often said that I am glad when my nieces and nephews struggle with their salvation because I don't want them to just inherit it, I want them to own it. This is the same thing in my mind.

True conversion is life-changing. It isn't simply knowing that you're going to heaven. It must involve a radical shift in your thinking and a new understanding of how you are loved and how to love others. If our Christianity has never affected our lives in this way, then each of us individually needs to revisit our conversion.

Currently I'm living with and trying to help my 80-year-old mother. I gain many benefits by this arrangement as she is a sweet woman and loved by many. There's a lot to be said for the goodwill garnered by those around you.

On a recent Sunday, she was prayed for multiple times and I was grateful for the encouragement. One special prayer was that God would prepare a way for her to connect with a neighbor in trauma, and the answer to that prayer was most surprising. On Tuesday a police officer came to our door while I was at work. He informed mother that the license tabs on one of our cars had been expired since February and she had one week to rectify. While they were talking she asked whether or not the recent road closure meant that there would be road work done on our block.

Being a good daughter, especially when prompted by police officers , I immediately arranged for us to get the required license tabs, which we did that evening.

It was a good evening's work and we thought we were done. God had another idea which came to my mother the next morning. She realized she now had something to call our neighbor about, information that would be of benefit to her. Prayerfully she connected with this neighbor to share her information and it opened the door. Our neighbor was being visited by her sister and together they came over and took a tour of our backyard. We have a nice backyard and we're particularly proud of the funky and makeshift garden fencing with its crib headboard for a gate. The ladies enjoyed our swing and were so pleased with the garden, as the tomato plants reminded them of their own mother’s large garden from years past. As they took the tour something was mentioned about prayer and Mom seized the opportunity. Soon they were holding hands and praying together. What a blessing!

I am so grateful that God is in the business of answering prayers!

God is a huge concept, not to mention a huge God. Grappling with biblical contradictions like predestination and free will can tax a person's understanding. And, while I don't believe we have to understand everything, there is in the Bible, often we find comfort in things we can understand.

One of my first blogs was titled, 'Who's going to hell,' and the discussion that led to that blog helped me to realize that Jesus's death on the cross was God's only option for saving us. Before that discussion I felt like God was infinite and the possibilities were just as infinite; however, after that discussion I realized that the infinite possibilities were narrowed down by God's desire to design us to have free will. In the end, God's only option was to offer salvation through Christ's death and resurrection.

So, back to that free will and predestination concept. I have recently thought of this conundrum as similar to philosophy's theory of infinite realities, or maybe they call it quantum realities, where there is a reality for every conceivable possibility for how life can turn out.

When I described this to my sister, using the scene from Star Trek at the top of this post, she challenged me as to why God would then allow one person to live and another person not to, one person to get saved and another not to, as He chose this particular reality, and, for at least today, I think I have the answer. I believe it's the same answer as to why Christ had to die on the cross. I believe that when God looked at the infinite possibilities for how this world could go, the current line of history is the only line that allowed His message, His purposes and His deliverance to be fulfilled. It was the only one where we could have free will and still have God's message of love and God's plan of salvation made available to us.

How grateful I am that God chose this reality with this life for me.

Have you ever read or heard a Christian quote and thought 'something's a little off here?' This has been happening to me a lot lately. I'm actually rather glad to see it because it means that I'm growing in my understanding.

A while back my sister wrote a devotional she named, 'Gasping for Grace' and called it a devotional for discouraged dieters. While I need to diet, I tend to work at eating healthier as opposed to reducing my calories, yet I have found this devotional book to be life-changing. Her 31 daily devotions look at the huge concept of grace and break it down into bite-size pieces that come out like courses in a gourmet meal. The truth they provide has required several readings to sink in, but I can finally hear a new understanding of grace in my self-talk. How grace allows me to turn condemnation into a way to grow closer to God and to grow in maturity. How I can look at quotes like "Give it your best, then give it to God." and see why the Holy Spirit doesn't show up until the end of our ability to do things ourselves. I can read a prayer that's more like an apology and wonder 'where is the God-given power in that?' But especially when Satan comes to me with regret, I can take that memory to God and say, "God, I did that and I'm sorry. Thank you for forgiving me. Is there anything I need to do about that today." And during that process I know His presence and His blessing and at the end of the process, I show Him the gratitude of my heart. What a peace it brings! And, of course, the hope is that this personal understanding and application of grace will spread to the understanding and application of grace to others.

One of the first words our kids learn to say is ‘no.’ I use to think that it was because it was just two letters, that rolls easily off the tongue. It takes far less effort than saying ‘mommy’ or ‘daddy’ so why wouldn’t kids choose that word to learn first. But then, if the bible is correct, and a little child will lead…just maybe there is a vital lesson there for us adults.

It takes guts to say no, and kids have a lot of guts. They learn this word before they learn fear, and they use the word with the same confidence they have that if they jump off a ledge, you will catch them. I don’t even think they fully understand what it means. As you grow older, you learn that sometimes the most loving thing you can say to someone is "no." Consequences aren't always immediate, but they are inevitable.

I had a friend who thought it was neat that her 6 yr old could handle scary movies. I warned her against it, but didn't have anything other than 'that's what you're supposed to do' to back it up. She learned the hard way that the common wisdom was sound, when her daughter started having nightmares.

When Christians point at a particular activity and say that it needs to stop, it might seem like hate speech, but it really is grounded in sound moral principles that are meant to protect us from the consequences that will be borne out over time. I just wish I knew how to communicate that better.

**I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Cleveland McLeish, my editor, for his contributions to this post, as he masterfully rewrote it for me. If you would like to utilize his services, he's available on Fiverr as Cabcom or Cleveland O McLeish or Christian editor/ghostwriter. I highly recommend his services.