This is taken from a book I am currently writing, I am going to post it here one chapter at a time. I pray that those who read this will receive some benefit from it, and, who knows maybe someone will learn to love God with all their heart.

Introduction

Loving God with all of our hearts is the holy grail of Christianity, if you can do that and love your neighbor as yourself you will have fulfilled the greatest commandments. In Luke 10:25-28 it says, And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall 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 your neighbors as yourself.” And Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

You will most certainly live alright, both in this world and in the next, for those who have learned the secret of loving God wholeheartedly find a different dimension of “living”. Jesus said in  John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly. 

So yeah, it is what many of us dream about. Oh, if we could only learn to love God wholeheartedly, wouldn’t that be wonderful! Well I have good news, it is indeed possible because I have done it and I am going to share with you how I did it and how you can too. It is easy peasy, lemon squeezey, not!. Of course it is not easy, but it is doable and that is the important thing. 

It is going to involve you confronting your spiritual enemies, and with any sins that are hindering you, you are going to do battle with them and I will show you how you can win! Yes win, every time. If you are a Christian you know that Christ lives in you. Jesus, the one who co-created the entire universe and that out of nothing! What power, His power is unimaginable, incomprehensible, everlasting, I am running out of superlatives but you get the picture, and He lives in you. All we have to do is figure out how to tap into that amazing power and we win, every time. Don’t worry, I will show you show how step by step.

It is also going to involve you using your faith. Faith is important, in 1John5:4 it says, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world—our faith.” Again I will show you how.

Now you might be wondering why all this talk about fighting sin and the evil one and overcoming the world using our faith and how all this has to do with loving God? It has everything to do with loving God. Maybe I should have mentioned this in the very beginning but I will now, this is not going to be easy, on the contrary it is going to be hard, real hard at first but after a few battles under your belt it will become easy. After all didn’t Jesus say, “ Take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Loving God is not just a fuzzy feeling, like what you get when  you are in a really cool worship service with a good band and good worship songs that you know and love to sing and everybody there is really into it. That’s good, don’t get me wrong but that  is not loving God with your whole heart.

Loving God involves you getting into the trenches with Jesus and fighting with Him by your side. You and Him, mono v mono. It is there in the trenches, fighting, clinging, trusting, hoping, sweating and thinking all is lost— then your Savior comes and He recuses you. “What a Savior!” When you experience Him delivering you, one on one and you experience the power of God engaged on your behalf, for you! Yes for you. You will be amazed and your admiration for our Lord will soar and…and… that amazement and that admiration will melt your heart and you will begin to love Him whole heartedly. You will fall in love with Him, dare I say that? And when that happens it will be all over for you, you are just going to love Him and love Him and love Him. It is kind of like what soldiers feel towards their sergeant  on the battlefield when that sergeant leads them effectively and victoriously into battle. Not just once but over and over again. Kind of like captain Miller in “Saving Private Ryan” the soldiers affection for their captain swells up within them and if you remember in the movie, Mr. Ryan, now an old man visits the grave of Captain Miller and as an old man he still remembers his captain and he turns to his wife and asked her if he had been a good man. He wanted to know because he wanted Captain Miller to be proud of him. They all loved captain Miller for what he had done for them. He led them into battle and to victory.

When George Washington dismissed his troops after the American Revolution many of them wept. Why? Because they love him. And you will love Jesus too, He is the Captain of our Salvation, He is the Lord of Hosts which means the Lord of the heavenly armies. So saddle up, put on the full armor of God, you are going to need it and you are going to head into some very fierce battles, the prize awaits us! This is Christianity raw and unfiltered. Lets do this.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may he make his face shine on you and be gracious to you, may he lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.