Do I love God?

God answered a prayer request today. It was something I had pretty much lost hope of being answered yet God came through. The first thing I could say was "Praise God, He is so Good!" Then I began to wonder, "do I say that He is good based on the fact that He answers my prayers or because He is as Himself is all glorious, awesome and indeed very good. Just because He is regardless wether He ever answers my prayers or not. In my heart, I had to wonder wether my love for Him was just for self-centered reasons and wether I actually loved Him for who He is.
My Dad, one time challenged me; "if everything I ever dreamed of about heaven; the beautiful colors, music, seeing the saints from long ago and knowing the family members I lost and having there being no pain or sadness; if all that was not there, but only God in His presence dwelled, would I still long for heaven?" Another way to put it would be if everthing we dreamed of was there except for God, would we even want to be there? If I can imagine enjoying a heaven without God then I'm not sure I really love Him......that my love only goes to the bounds of what He can do for me.
I remember the chorus of a Rich Mullins song titled "Brother's Keeper"

My friends ain't the way I wish they were
They are just the way they are
And I will be my brother's keeper
Not the one who judges him
I won't despise him for his weakness
I won't regard him for his strength
I won't take away his freedom
I will help him learn to stand

The love for his brother this song speaks goes beyond what that brother can do for him. It is a selfless love that does not require love in return nor good deeds to the other. No matter what, he will love his brother.

And what should my Love for God be? Certainly not a self-centered love. I headed back to God's word. It says that God is love(1 John 4:8) but what is this love?
1 Cor. 13:4-7 says
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." This is how He loves me, I know this is true.
The Bible also says "If you love me, you will obey what I command.(John 14:15) And what are His commands? If you take all the commands of God in the Bible and combine them you will find they can all be summed up with these two "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.(Luke 10:27)
The love, I believe we should have for God is just that.One that is not bound by what He does for us but as John 15:9-17 says

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I 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. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.

What love is this? That a man would lay down his life for a friend.
Indeed, God is very Good, His name be praised.
~AGK

God is Sovereign....we cannot boast

Here are some verses that have been on my mind lately..I don't know why but they seem somehow to go together.....
Lately, Often I've been really struck just by how meaningless our wisdom and the things we call important are....as it says in Ecc. 2:10-16

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my work,
and this was the reward for all my labor.
Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun.
Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.
What more can the king's successor do
than what has already been done?
I saw that wisdom is better than folly,
just as light is better than darkness.
The wise man has eyes in his head,
while the fool walks in the darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.
Then I thought in my heart,
"The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?"
I said in my heart,
"This too is meaningless."
For the wise man, like the fool, will not be long remembered;
in days to come both will be forgotten.
Like the fool, the wise man too must die!"

We try so hard...only to die in the end, the only thing that was gained was the things that were done for Christ....some other verses I came across recently were from 1 Corinthians 1:20-31
"Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."
And one in Esther.

he sent back this answer: "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?"
-Esther 4:13-15

Sometimes I look at everything I strive for and it all seems so empty..at which I have to believe that I'm striving for the wrong things....It's so important to remember that God longs to take our nothingness and our weakness and to use us, we can't look at our lives and call it all our gain...we are placed, chosen and called...we don't come to God on our own but by His gentle hand drawing us to Himself....you can take this 2 ways....My dad pointed out the other day that the world is trying to say that morality was their idea..that man is basically good, like it had nothing to do with a God...Morality, the law and everything was God's idea...not ours....we as humans are seriously nothing....in a recent letter with a friend it was said "How could a God so perfect.... use the imperfect....it's rather humbling to think about it....like have you ever heard one of those speakers who tell you for an hour or two straight about who God is and at the end you end up feeling ....lowly and worthless...But then there's the other half of the time when you take it all for granted and then you begin to put yourself higher and think you have it all......but the fact is... we are very important to God...we are His children...His pride and Joy the Love of His life...we are very important.....BECAUSE OF HIM....And somehow He over looks our imperfections and loves us with a love unexplainable.

I really don't know if any of that made sense...just some thoughts.....sorry it was so long

Truly in the Race

Where are my ambitions? What are my dreams?
Are my thoughts truly going for Your plan for me?

And when I strive for the goal, and I'm in the race,
Are my actions running Your holy way?

I want to say that I'm pure and I want to prove my love;
But am I really excepting all Your dreams for me?

I want to say I'm a Christian, a believer at the cross,
But are my actions all that I say, Am I truly in the Race?

Is this costing me anything? To stand in Your Army is
Just one small thing, but to fight and die in the battle...am I willing

There's nothing more I long for than Your face
But the harvest is so plenty and Your children are so few.

I say that I love You Lord, and anything for You I'd do.
You say "Child you have your words right, now go and feed my sheep."

Am I truly in the race or am I fighting my own fight?
Are my actions really showing You through me?

Is this costing me anything, to stand in Your Army is one small thing
But to fight and die in the battle..am I willing?

Am I truly, really living and dying Your holy way?
Oh Lord, Am I truly in Your race?

An example to others of what You have done,
Of what You are doing in me.

-AGK-