Demand #9 - Willene

Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength

"To love God we must know him...If love does not come from knowing God, there is no point in calling it love for God."

• We can't truly love God unless we truly know Him. Just as a love for any other person, you love that person because you got to know them. So it is with God. Until we actually know Him ourselves (not what other people say), then we can say that we truly love Him for who He is.

"for true love for God will always bring about love for people...This means that the behaviors of love towards others are not the essential meaning of loving God. They are the overflow or fruit of loving God."

• So when we learn to truly love God, we can learn to also truly love people. We can't love God and not love other people. It says that love for people is the overflow/fruit of our love for God. So if we aren't really loving other people, are we even really loving God in the first place?

"every faculty and every capacity of our being should express the fullness of our affection for God - the fullness of all the ways that we treasure him."

• Simply put, if we love God, it should just show outside of us; in everything we do, say, and think. It shouldn't be hard to show our love for God if we really do love Him.