God said: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”
Jeremiah 31:3
God’s love for us is a unique, unconditional love. He loves us because that’s who He is! There’s no justification, nor is it disputed. When it comes to our love for Him, why do we love Him? When people see us, can they identify a person who loves God?
Among the stories of so many influential and noteworthy men, the story of John Huss draws my attention in particular…
On July 6, 1415, Huss was stripped of his clerical garments, crowned with a donkey hat with sketches of the devil, tied to a stake and burned to death. According to an eyewitness account, he entrusted his soul to God and sang a hymn to Christ while the flames enveloped him. Once dead, the authorities crushed his remains and threw them into the Rhine to prevent them from being worshiped by his followers. Huss’s life, theology, and death greatly impressed me. He literally gave his life in order to defend his doctrine. In a letter written during his imprisonment, he expressed the hope that the stronger “birds” than he would emerge to continue his work. In fact, God honored Huss’s hope, and we see his work’s survival through the history of the Protestant Reformation.
You have likely never been in situations where you had to choose to deny your love for God or die, and neither have I, but every day we go through situations in which we must choose to be faithful to that love or to despise it.
We are still at the beginning of a new year, and I know that you have set several professional objectives, relationship and health goals, and perhaps others. But maybe you haven’t thought to set spiritual goals. There’s still time! I know that it often seems difficult to balance a career, social life, family, and religion, but it is extremely important for our walk with God to be at the top of our list of goals.
I challenge you to set and achieve spiritual goals. Analyze your spiritual life and set goals and ways to achieve them. If even after your analysis, you were unable to come up with a goal, I’d like to help! ????
We can start by reading. Within your list of books to read in 2020, you can add an x number of books from the Spirit of Prophecy, in addition to the Bible, of course! How about setting a goal to understand 3 prophecies this year? Would that be possible? What if I challenged you to invite 5 guests to Sabbath School throughout the year? Is that too much? I think it’s a reasonable number, right? We could also put health reform as a goal, to be more patient, help others more, not miss church services, we could even start a new project at your local church, whether in the youth, children, women’s department, or wherever you identify with the most, or simply do more to support the programs that already exist! Set these goals and outline the steps needed to achieve them.
No matter what goals you set, the important thing is that these objectives help you grow closer to God. Friend, to love God is the only thing that we can do in exchange for the love that He bestows upon us daily. When we love someone, we want to do everything possible to please them. With God it is no different, we must give our best. “So be very careful to love the Lord your God,” Joshua 23:11.
What do you say? Will you accept the challenge to, together, reach a higher level of love towards Him?
