How Can Christians Love God Properly?
People are flawed, and the human heart is not capable of giving unconditional love. So how can finite humans love an infinite God?
Pastor John Piper wrote on his Desiring God website that this poses a problem since God has called on Christians to love Him supremely. He even warned in Matthew 10:37: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me [or son or daughter more than me] is not worthy of me."
Because of this, many Christians feel guilty about falling short on their love for God. But Piper assured that God does not want His children to live in guilt because of it. In fact, God wants Christians to enjoy "sweet contentment and a profound sense of assurance that He loves you and accepts you and forgives you and will receive you in the end."
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The pastor added that people will never fully understand the depths of their own sins, and they won't even know how to distinguish false guilt from true guilt. Piper said the whole approach is simply hopeless, and the only remedy to this lies in God's declaration that people are innocent even of the measures of sin they cannot discern.
"You don't know your heart. Nobody knows the depth of his own sinfulness," he said. "That's what the gospel offer in Christ does: declares us innocent of all faults, including the ones we can't see."
Only God is all-knowing when it comes to people's sins and faults, and thankfully, He has given Christians the Gospel that Christ died for people's sins - even those they cannot see or realise.
"So, I think what this means, practically, now...is that we should daily appropriate the gospel of the blood of Jesus to cleanse our conscience and to give us peace with God and then, from that hope-filled position, we should be on the alert," explained Piper. "And if we detect our love for any created person, or any created thing, rising to compete with our love for God, we should repent and ask for forgiveness and fly to Jesus and seek help to see God more clearly and love Him more dearly."
Piper is also preparing Christians for Holy Week, which he said was an opportunity to reflect on their faith and a "reminder to pause and ponder, to carefully mark each day."
