I have thought recently about what it means to love God. Now that may seem odd. I’ve been in ministry for over 30 years and have two degrees from two different seminaries. You would think I would have a handle on that. I mean, to love God is pretty basic; it’s kind of the foundation of everything. When Jesus was asked to provide the greatest commandment, he said that all of the Law and all of the writings of the Prophets boiled down to two things: Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Mt. 22:34-40). So even though loving God is quite important, I’m not sure I know what that really means.

From the outset, I don’t think loving God is simply about obedience. I don’t think it is about following a set of rules or some code of conduct. The Pharisees were incredibly obedient, down to even tithing the herbs in their garden, yet Jesus told them that they were white-washed tombs. They looked good on the outside but on the inside, they were full of dead people’s bones (Mt. 23:27-28). Their behavior was impeccable, but their heart was not clean. Jesus called them hypocrites. The Apostle Paul would say the same thing in his great chapter on love in I Corinthians. We may speak with eloquence and prophesy and have great faith, but if we don’t have love, then it means nothing.

I think that tells us something. Loving God is not simply about doing the right things. It must be about the heart. Love for God must come from the heart. But again, what does that mean? If love for God is more than good behavior, if it comes from the heart, then how do I really know if I am loving God?

I think the Old Testament helps us here. God gave the Ten Commandments because the people of Israel were going into a land inhabited by idol worshippers. He wanted to give them commands that would counter what they would experience in the Promised Land. So, he began by telling them to have no other gods besides him, to not worship any image or anything man-made, to not take his name in vain or use his name in a flippant manner, and to set aside a day to worship him specifically—the first four commandments. In those four commandments, it seems that what God is saying is that we should prioritize God, we should prefer him. We should lean into him in every situation. And we should lean into him alone—no idols, no other gods besides him. Nothing else should satisfy us, nothing else should provide for us, nothing else should give us any sense of security or significance. God, and only God, should be our source of life, our foundation, our hope and our help and our future. And our love for God must be exclusive. You can’t love two things equally at the same time. That’s why “prefer” is a good word to describe love for God. To love God is to prefer him over anything else.

So, I think to love God means that we lean into him, that we prefer him, that we trust him and his ways and his commands and his will for our lives in every situation. And that means that we don’t prefer ourselves. King Solomon said it this way in Proverbs 3:5. “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding.” I think that’s it. I think that gets closer to what it means to love God, certainly close than simply doing good things and having good behavior. In hardships and difficulties and uncertainties, we trust and rest and are confident in the good control and plan and will of God. And in so doing, we don’t lean on our own understanding. We abandon any trust in our own efforts and understandings and provisions. To love God is to prioritize him, to make him central in my thoughts and actions and decisions, to view him as first and foremost and supreme in every aspect of my life. And love for God requires that he be our only love. To love God is to view all of life through the grid that he is good, that he knows best, and that he is in control, and then to rest in him, and in him alone.