Simple Love

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” (Matthew 22:37-38)

The world is an exhausting place as we search for what should be most important or what deserves our attention from moment to moment. As the tides of societal values ebb and flow, so do our affections. We invest value and love into that which offers us nothing in return. Our efforts to fill our lives with simple meaning often results in filling our lives with complicated and bewildering complexity. We make complex what God intended to be so blessedly simple.

A. W. Tozer, a mid 20th century American pastor, preacher, editor, and devotional writer associated with evangelicalism in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, wrote in his very influential book, The Pursuit of God,

“Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. If we would find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity.” (Ch. 2,"The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing")

Loving God is at the core of everything we are meant to be and do. Our love for God matters more than any achievement, success, or program. It matters more than any possession, status, or relationship. In fact, everything we do and every relationship we have, unless they are specifically centered in God, is nothing more than a distraction. But when we pursue loving God above all else, all other pursuits fall into their proper places.

We were not created to offer our affections to anyone or anything but God first and foremost. To do otherwise is simply idolatry, and it will ruin the heavenly peace and simplicity God intends for his children. We create our own golden calves and ask them to satisfy us in ways only God can. We look to the world to offer us love it never had to begin with. But your heavenly Father is a wellspring of love and affection for you.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)  

You will never be satisfied until you rest in the powerfully simple truth that God has loved you and will always love you. And you will never experience the fullness of what Christ died to give you until you respond to his ceaseless love by crowning him Lord and loving him with every fiber of your being. Make it simple, recognize now what you love and turn to the Father with greater love for that which you have been given.

Simply,
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Fr. Bill+