Do you Still Love God

[Ramez5]

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.Songs 8:

The simple fact is that either as a man or a woman.. we desperately need God’s love and we desperately need to love God. I really think this passage is easier for women to picture than for the men. But we are all the Bride of Christ.. In this passage of Songs 8 we see our Lord as fiercely jealous of our heart, our time, our passion, and our loyalty. And we see us clinging to the Lord (like a seal on his arm and heart) for dear life.

Why clinging? Because the world wants us to love it.. and our flesh wants us to love us.. enemies both within and without. Until this year – meditating and reading so much of the old testament, I have never seen such a strong message of God as a jealous God who both desires and demands our loyalty and our affections and our heart just as much as he required our obedience. I always thought he cared only about obedience and the law. No.. He cared mostly about our hearts (David, Joseph, Moses, children of Israel). That’s why the greatest commandment is ’love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind".

God cares about our hearts more than any other thing.. at all. And He will do whatever is necessary to get it back.

Hopefully, you won’t have to hit bottom to be willing to ignore the tyranny of the urgent long enough to make seeking Him a priority.

What do we give our hearts to? Well anything but God. How do you know where your heart is? Where is your treasure.. where do you spend your time. And what is the state of your heart.. is it loving, patient, kind, honest? If not.. that’s a good check that though we may ‘feel’ like we love God.. we possibly have gotten misdirected along the way. We must not let our flesh deceive us into thinking that we love God when our love has actually grown cold. His love never changes.. but ours certainly does.

How do we get back when we’ve lost the way? When our hearts feel cold and dull towards God? I know what I did.. prayer, read my bible, ask God to revive my cold heart and wake it up. I remember the day I started praying about this. I felt nothing. The bible was like words on a page.. black and white print. This was only in January. But I knew who could fix it and so I just asked him. Day in and day out. God.. please.. make me love you again.

Yes I was willing to ‘live right’ but the spark was gone. Somewhere along the way I quit clinging to the Lord and decided I didn’t quite need his assistance.

The worst part about self-reliance is you don’t think you need God. So we get ‘too busy’ for time with Him. A good analogy to this would be a 10 yr old who feels he could manage the family finances, or drive the car. We need the Lord far more than we know. And he demands our love and is more serious about our heart’s affections than we have any idea of. God’s love is a consuming fire.. jealous..and it’s all for our good.


I love what Matthew Henry says about this verse: Let me have an impression of love upon thine heart. Of this the soul would be assured, and without a sense thereof no rest is to be found. Those who truly love Christ, are jealous of every thing that would draw them from him; especially of themselves, lest they should do any thing to provoke him to withdraw from them. If we love Christ, the fear of coming short of his love, or the temptations to forsake him, will be most painful to us. No waters can quench Christ’s love to us, nor any floods drown it. Let nothing abate our love to him. Nor will life, and all its comforts, entice a believer from loving Christ. Love of Christ, will enable us to repel and triumph over temptations from the smiles of the world, as well as from its frowns.

Dear Lord, If our love has grown cold..I pray you would wake us up. Whatever it takes, cause us to cling to you again. If we think we love you but don't, then please.. open our eyes. And Lord help us know and be assured of how much you love us too. Nothing can separate us from your love.. give us an assurance of that today. Amen