Our Love for God

Our love for God takes on a whole new meaning when we come to the New Testament. And why shouldn’t it? Here we see, as did Simeon, the salvation brought about by the Lord’s Christ (Luke 2:26, 30). This is the focus of lesson 4, which falls on the Sunday before Christmas Day.

The other lessons from the New Testament (5–10) challenge students to love God in a manner befitting such a marvelous gift. Lesson 5, the final study of the year, may provide a source of New Year’s resolutions in calling students to loving acts that demonstrate their love of Jesus. In lesson 9 Paul exhorts us to imitate the Savior’s sacrificial love as we esteem others (Philippians 2:1–11).

We show our love for God essentially the same way that Old Testament believers were to show theirs: by a life of obedience. “This is love,” writes John, “that we walk in obedience to [God’s] commands” (2 John 6, lesson 6). We must not allow our love to erode by becoming too closely attached to this world. James is clear about that: “Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4, lesson 7).

Furthermore, our love for God is meant to deepen even in the midst of this world’s difficult circumstances. Paul’s chains in Rome could not hinder either the progress of the gospel (lesson 8) or his personal walk with the Lord (lesson 10). In fact, not even death can shake the Christian’s confidence. As Paul so beautifully states, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21, lesson 8). Our love for God took on new meaning when God came to live in our world; it will certainly take on new meaning when we go to live in his!

Tom Thatcher, “Quarter at a Glance,” in The NIV Standard Lesson Commentary, 2018–2019, ed. Ronald L. Nickelson, vol. 25 (Colorado Springs, CO: Standard Publishing, 2018), 115.