God’s Love, Our Heart Response
The entire Bible is a wonderful narrative of God’s love. It reveals how, because of His love for us, God creates a plan to redeem mankind and restore us to the original and perfect relationship with Him intended in the beginning.
God’s love is evident throughout His word and is represented through Jesus, who is the single redeemer in the restoration plan for mankind.
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. –Romans 5:8, NLT
This sacrificial love declared through Jesus portrays a love that never fails. A love that is relentless, unconditional and beyond what we can fully understand. Yet, it is made freely available for everyone to receive.
Accepting God’s love means being sure of an everlasting life and becoming part of His kingdom. It’s an eternal, secure love that transcends beyond all things seen or unseen.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 8:38-39, NLT
So we can be sure and say God loves us. However, what is our heart response to this love, and why does it matter?
It’s important to examine our heart response as receiving God’s love is not just a case of passive receiving. In our free will, we make choices leading to actions and thoughts sourced from the condition of our hearts. It also matters because love is reciprocal and requires action. And while God’s love will always be open to all, we each have a choice in our response on how deeply we receive His love.
God created us not as robots but as beings who make choices, which includes our heart response to His love. The extent to which our heart is aligned with God determines how deeply we can understand and receive the love He offers us. Therefore, we should not be unaware of the importance of examining our hearts in true acceptance of His love.
The gift of salvation, which is a direct result of God’s love, requires not just a passive receiving of the gift but a conscious and intentional heart posture when receiving. True acceptance is not just in saying but must be combined with believing in one’s heart that Jesus is your Lord and Saviour.
If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. -Romans 10:9, NLT
If our heart response is necessary for our salvation, it must also be required in all areas of our lives. This means everything we do should be centred on our response to God’s love. This is demonstrated throughout scripture, with several guidelines and commands highlighting the importance of ensuring our heart posture is intentionally and correctly aligned with God.
For example, to seek God, we must do so from our heart so God can, in turn, reveal Himself to us:
But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. -Deuteronomy 4:29, NKJV
And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13, NKJV
God cares about our heart intentions in all things, and like fire testing the purity of silver and gold, He tests our hearts (Proverbs 17:3). We should, in surrender, welcome and not resist this process. It is necessary to ensure the intentions of our heart, which will be reflected in our actions, are in line with His will.
God’s word can dissect our innermost thoughts and is key in the process of refining our hearts to be aligned with His:
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. -Hebrews 4:12, ESV
Our walk with God is not just about acknowledging His existence; it’s about having a personal relationship with Him that deepens as we grow in knowledge and fear of Him. We gain an understanding of God through the wisdom in His word which allows us to live according to His plans and purposes for our lives. This, in turn, ensures our heart is continuously being tested and refined as needed, resulting in a heart posture and intentions that are aligned with what God desires for us.
The Bible contains accounts of several lives that demonstrate the outcome of having a heart in alignment with God. In particular, we can learn a lot from the accounts of David, one of Israel’s kings, on what it means to have a heart posture aligned with God.
God personally chose David as he was deemed “a man after His (God’s) own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). This credit to his character is evident throughout David’s writings in the book of Psalms. These God-inspired writings are filled with timeless revelations we can actively apply in our own lives to delve into a deeper understanding of our Creator.
For example, the following prayer authored by David is one of many that reflects his desire to have a heart aligned with God:
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. –Psalm 139:23-24, NLT
The Bible’s narration of David’s life is not only about his triumphs but includes many of his challenges and shortcomings. Despite his failings, however, David’s relentless pursuit of God’s heart made room for him to be continuously redirected on the right path. A desire to grow in love for God resulted in the blessings evident throughout David’s life of encountering God and developing a profound knowledge of Him. With the guidance and teachings of the Holy Spirit, we can also, like David, develop a desire for a heart after God.
In the gospel books, the life of Jesus demonstrates the sole example of being perfectly aligned with God’s heart. Jesus was in complete harmony with the desires of God to the extent that He could execute God’s perfect will. Everything Jesus did was with a heart completely in tune with what He knew the Father desired of Him. Every part of Jesus reflected His Father’s heart, as is evident throughout the gospels:
In what He spoke: I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. (John 12:49, NLT).
In His actions: Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. (John 4:34, NLT)
And His innermost desires: He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Matthew 26:39, NLT)
While no one apart from Jesus can fully gain perfect knowledge of God, as disciples of Jesus, we follow these examples as we strive to understand God’s heart. As we lean on the Holy Spirit, we can develop roots that steadily grow into a deeper understanding of God’s love. As Paul visualises in Ephesians 3:17-18, NLT:
Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.
So, it can be observed that our heart response plays an essential role in how we understand and receive God’s love. It can also be recognised that such an emphasis on the posture of our heart is necessary so our love towards others can accurately reflect God’s own love for us. After all, as followers of Jesus, we are called and, in fact, commanded to love:
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” -Matthew 22:36-40, NIV
Love is the primary and central motivation for God’s creation and why we all exist. It is also intended that love should be central to our lives and a driving factor in all we do, whether in our words, actions, or desires. As followers of Christ, we should be aware that reflecting God’s love is part of our duty as His children.
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. -1 John 4:7, NLT
Therefore, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can respond with our hearts and develop a greater understanding of God’s love. The extent to which we commit ourselves to be in alignment with God determines how deeply we can understand His love and, in turn, reflect it onto the world.
However, reflecting God’s unconditional and everlasting love is impossible by our strength. Only through the Holy Spirit can our hearts begin to understand, adapt and act on this love.
We begin by accepting God’s love and welcoming Jesus into our lives. Acknowledging we are not deserving because of our sins, but that we can receive the hope of everlasting life by the mercy of God and Jesus’ sacrifice. Only from then can we begin to reflect this love in our lives, developing a commitment to grow in God’s love through our relationship with Him.
God will gladly give us the heart we need to properly reflect His love when He sees our desire to have a heart in tune with His. Our sinful nature means we need a constant refining of our hearts. Like having a reoccurring divine procedure from the Great Physician Himself, constantly testing our hearts for anything that might be hardened against His will and replacing it with the softness of obedience.
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. -Ezekiel 36:26, NLT
This tender and responsive heart God gives us is what we need to live under the influence of His love. It empowers us to relate to others, serve, and forgive. It gives us a longing to seek God’s heart and His will. It burdens us with a desire to reach lost souls so we can obey the commission assigned to all His followers by sharing the message of God’s love and salvation to the world.
Like David, let’s seek to be after God’s heart and despite our shortcomings, be persistent in our strive to understand God on a deeper level. Like Jesus, let’s desire to reflect God’s love through our words, actions, desires, and every detail of our lives.
So through prayer, the meditation of His word and communion with Jesus, may we continue to abide in God’s love. May we seek God wholeheartedly through His strength and open our hearts to a continuous refinement process to be in harmony with His will. Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, may we be committed to genuinely and accurately reflecting God’s love brightly to everyone we encounter.
We love because God first loved us. -1 John 4:19, GNT
