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Love God and Do as You Please

The title of this post is an aphorism attributed to St. Augustine.  For the life of me however I can't find the citation.  Even with the help of google and a pretty big early church fathers library in Logos I just can't seem to track this down.  If you know where it is let me know!  Nevertheless, I think it is a pretty good quote.

What I like about it is both its simplicity and its symmetry.  Simple works for me.  I have plenty  of complicated things in my life as it is so when something simple comes along I grab on to it.  After all, it is just seven short words that have a kind of rhythm when you say them out loud.  Even I can remember these words.

The symmetry is in how the two clauses work together.  When you first hear this you might think great!  I can do whatever I darn well want as long as I love God.  But wait a second. What does it mean to love God anyway? In our emotion laden culture we might reduce "love" to some kind of ooey gooey warm feeling deep inside about God. But that is not the way God uses the word.  When the Bible says "God so loved the world" it is not talking about a feeling God has but a commitment He has made.  You might even say something like "God is so committed tor the world that He gave His one and only son".  So to love God is to be absolutely committed to Him.  It is to surrender our thinking, doing, and even feeling to what He says. So instead of listening to that stuff we make up in heads about right, wrong, good, bad, we let God tell us what is right, wrong, good, bad.  Instead of grabbing our to-do list and charging off we instead ask whether our to-do is God's to-do for us.  Instead of being ruled by lust, fear, greed, envy, we bring those emotions under the control of what God has said.

So, in light of this, what will you be pleased to do if you really love God? Of course you will end up doing the things that please Him.  See how the symmetry works? It is a beautiful thing in my opinion and why I really like this quote.

Won't you join with me today and ask God to give you the grace to really love Him?  Ask God to change you so that you are so committed to Him that you yield your thinking, doing, and feeling to Him.  As you grow in your commitment you will be surprised at what you do.

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