Something concerning in the Church today is the attitude where one does whatever is right in his own eyes.

Taking for granted God’s love, grace and long-suffering nature – believers pursue whatever they please, expecting a loving God to condone and celebrate His children notwithstanding.

But this is far from the truth. The fact that God left us 66 books for our study indicates that He’s very meticulous about what He approves of and what He doesn’t. A key misconception that we must deal with is that we can love God however we want or choose to express that love for Him in whichever manner we desire.

Because God is very particular about how we’re to express our love for Him.

In the Old Testament, the Law would show a clear contrast between the prescribed manner of worship acceptable to the Lord and the way pagan worship was conducted. Integral to the pagan worship of those times were the offering of child sacrifices, tattooing, temple harlotry, divination and other reprehensible practices.

The Lord made it clear in Leviticus 19 that He would not accept such practices as a legitimate expression of worship and love towards Him.

We must never emphasise an aspect of God to the detriment of other equally valid virtues of the Lord.

Instead, He instituted five sacrifices in the Old Testament. One of them is the Burnt Offering.

The Burnt Offering was a voluntary offering – an expression of love from the giver of the sacrifice to the Lord. Interestingly, the way in which the Burnt Offering was to be offered was given in great detail. In other words, God is very particular about how we express our love for Him.

And we’re told in Leviticus 1, that the Burnt Offering is to be given in four parts: The head, fats, entrails and legs. My interpretation is that these represent our mind, strength, affections and our walk respectively. So the expression of our love for God has to be done through these four aspects of our lives.

Part of loving God comes from knowing Him. The more we come to know the Lord, the more we are drawn to love Him. He’s both merciful and severe. He’s full of grace and also full of truth. We must never emphasise an aspect of God to the detriment of other equally valid virtues of the Lord.

As we give our intellect to know Him and also to know that He cannot be fully understood, we direct our minds and thoughts towards Him more and more. Loving someone also requires for us to give our strength to express that love to them. So loving the Lord requires us to give ourselves to serve Him and to serve others.

One of the fundamental principles in God’s Word is that we cannot say that we love God (whom we cannot see), when we do not love the people around us (whom we can see). How much we love God can be seen by how much we love people – that’s why giving our strength to serve others is such a big part of our faith.

The third aspect has to do with our affections. This relates to our emotions and where our attention is focused on. Affections are often seen through the amount of time we spend with someone. We long to be with the person we’re in love with. Is God someone we desire to spend time with?

Finally, there’s our walk. Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments” (John 14:15). Obedience is the by-product of a loving walk with God. When we love the Lord, we won’t want to displease Him. We’d instead want to find out what pleases Him and walk in the same manner that He walked.

I pray that we’ll not have some fuzzy idea about what it means to love God, but understand that He has expressly shown us a prescribed way to love Him.

This article was first published on Cornerstone’s website, and is republished with permission.