The loving God test

My students are in the middle of finals.  Their school year ends in the winter rather than the spring, and it seems like a week cannot go by these days with my students having at least 1 test, sometimes more.  So, in the spirit of the situation, I decided to write a test for my readers.  This one, however, is a bit different from the normal exam that you'd find in a high school or university.

This one is called, for lack of a better name, the Loving God test.  I talked yesterday about how important it was for us to love God.  But that begs the question, how do you know if you love Him or not?

There are three things that I think that you can look at to see how much you love God - and how much you gold-dig.  The first is this: how do you react when things get tough?  Do you turn away from Him?  Or do you stick with Him through the good times and the bad times?  The Bible says that true loves produces perseverance.  Do you persevere?  Or do you run away?

Secondly, what motivates you to obey God's word?  Is it just to get stuff?  Or would you still obey Him with just as much fervor if you knew that you wouldn't get anything out of the deal?  When times get tough, when it doesn't look like God's doing anything for us, the desire to be blessed won't keep us faithful to Him.  Love's the only thing that will keep us faithful when we honestly don't really want to.

Finally, if God were to allow something important to you to be taken away, how would you react?  Is your identity based in Him, or is it based in your friends and family, your job, your accomplishments, or your status?  I never cease to be astonished by Job's love for the Lord.  Throughout all of his trials, in the middle of losing literally everything he held dear, he still loved the Lord.  He never doubted God's love for him, nor did he ever stop loving God.  It was not without a struggle, of course.  But at the end of the day, Job passed the test with flying colors.  Would you?

John 15:9-17

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.