What do you consider better than God’s love?

God loves you.

You’ve probably heard that God loves you. In fact, it’s become kind of a cliché. It shouldn’t be, though. God’s love is greater than anything else we have or experience. That said, we don’t always realize it.

We live in one of, if not the, wealthiest and safest society in the history of the world. We have access to food, shelter, legal protection, work opportunities and so much more. In fact, we have so much access to these things that we will turn down food or work we don’t like.

Do we have a grateful heart?

The truth is many of us don’t feel a sense of gratefulness for these basic necessities of life, at least not all the time, because we have become accustomed to having them. We assume they will be there.

Sadly, the same is all-to-often true for us when it comes to God’s love. So, “God loves you,” becomes a trite comment that goes in one ear and out the other. We even, at times, get to the point where we aren’t happy with God when things don’t go the way we wanted.

What Is Better Than God’s Love?
When we start to assume God’s love and minimize how necessary and wonderful it is, we start to elevate other things over it. Sure, we wouldn’t say it like that, but our actions and words betray us.

• We can find time to binge-watch the latest show on Netflix, but can’t find time to open our Bible.
• We can tell everyone how awesome our new job is, but can’t find the words to say anything about Jesus.
• We can find the time and money for our favorite hobby or our kid’s sport, but it’s hard to make it to church.

Life happens. God doesn’t say we can’t watch TV or talk about our job or enjoy a hobby, but those things should be in addition to and below God, not just because of God’s Law, but because of what God has done.

God’s Love Is Not Dependent On Your Gratefulness
Thankfully, God doesn’t wait for us. He doesn’t stop loving us because we don’t follow His ways all the time or say thank you.

That’s how great God’s love is!

His love isn’t conditional. Jesus died for you because you needed it. He loves you because that’s who He is. As Christians, that is actually our motivation for a grateful heart and to follow the ways of Jesus. We do it because of what God has already done for us.

Following commands out of obligation doesn’t create gratefulness. At best it creates obedience. However, because God acts first, loves first, saves first, provides first, and so on, we can respond not out of obligation, but gratefulness.