Receiving God’s Love

You have a problem. This problem exists in the heart of every human being. According to Scripture, God created you to worship. This means your heart is drawn to something or someone as your ultimate source for life and joy. Everyone, therefore, worships something. 

The problem is what you worship. Because sin lurks on the inside of every person, the human heart tends to aim its worship toward unworthy objects. God designed human beings to worship him, and when we pursue our ultimate allegiance for anything other than him, it eventually leads to death. What does your heart worship? The easiest way to find out is to answer this question: What in my life would completely devastate me if it were taken away from me? What can’t I live without? 

Some people worship their spouses. Others worship their bank accounts. Some worship their kids, their status, or their reputations. Most commonly, human beings worship self. We prioritize me and mine over all else. John Calvin famously said that the human heart is an “idol factory.” This means we tend to take even good things and value them above God. The end result is always the same: bondage, disappointment, and death. 

So how do we free ourselves from false idols? Augustine, the famous fourth-century church leader, taught that the only way to be free is for God to reorder our loves. We must create space every day, asking God to recalibrate our hearts and align our desires with truth. Above all else, we must choose to love God more than ourselves. The result of this practice is abundant joy. 

Consider habit 1: Spend the first hour of your morning alone with God. 

One hour every morning—that will definitely mess up your routine. One hour alone with God is a helpful goal for a number of reasons. For one thing, it’s long enough that it will completely disrupt your life. There is no way to just squeeze in an hour every morning. You have to plan for it, cancel other things for it, and go to bed earlier for it. It will be disruptive, and that’s sort of the point. It is a declaration to God that he is your greatest priority.

Does this seem unrealistic for you? If so, why? What would need to change for this to become a regular part of your daily routine? 

Read 1 John 4:16. What do you think is the difference between knowing God’s love and believing it? Do you believe that God loves you? Why, or why not? 

How can you use your daily time with God to recalibrate your perspective and abide in God’s love for you? How would your life be different if you lived every moment of your day fully aware of God’s great love toward you?

Thank God for exposing the false idols in your life and shining the light of his love into your heart.