Love and the Spiritual Disciplines

Mike Hosey, Elder

One of the things you will hear me preach from the pulpit often, as well as see written in this blog, is that love means being committed to the well being of another person.  In the case of a person's love for God, love means being committed to Him and His will for your life.

While this may not define love completely, it does make for a substantial portion of what love means. In essence, love is commitment. In fact, if one is not committed to a person, then one does not love that person.

Credit:Tatoli ba Kultura, CC-BY-SA 3.0

It also means to remain committed regardless of whether one has warm, fuzzy feelings at any given moment. Anyone with children or a spouse can attest to that!

I challenge you to take some of the famous love passages from the bible and replace the word love with the word "commit."  For instance, "For God was so committed to the world that he gave his only begotten son  . . ." (John 3:16). Go ahead, try it out with a few other verses as well.

This truth applies to most of the disciplines in our lives.

People who have exercise routines will tell you that they do what they do because they love the routine, or they love what it produces.

Truthfully, the more they engage in their routine, the more it becomes part of their life, and the more they feel they can't live without it. But if they are not committed to the process or the result, they won't engage in it.

This is no less true of spiritual disciplines like prayer, bible study, or private and public worship. Loving God means you'll be committed to communicating with Him, learning about Him and celebrating Him .

Just imagine one spouse uninterested in speaking with the other. When a husband and wife no longer communicate, some level of love or commitment is lost. 

So whenever you find your spiritual disciplines lacking, remind yourself of why you love Jesus, and recommit yourself to Him just as if you were in a personal loving relationship with Him.