Love = "Truly Wanting What's Best"

This past Sunday and this week our topic at Grace in the series Following Jesus is "Becoming a Worshipper/Lover of God." I want to quote an excellent section in Dave's book "Follow Me" (Click to get the PDF of the entire book) about the definition of Love and how that relates to our call to love God and glorify Him.

I believe that true, transcendent, Biblical love is: Truly wanting what’s best.

Therefore, when the Bible says that God is love, it means that God truly wants what is best. When the Bible teaches that God loves us, it means that God truly wants what is best for us. When the Bible commands us to love others, it is commanding us to truly want what is best for them. And again, when the Bible commands us to love God, it is commanding us to truly want what is best for God.

Before moving on, I want to provide two points of clarification: First, by “wanting” (what’s best) I mean possessing a deep longing for what’s best, a sense of delight in the attainment of what’s best, and a willingness to sacrifice to get what’s best (action). Second, by (wanting what’s) “best” I mean that which is truly best—not most appealing at the moment.

So, what is best? Best for us? Best for others? Best for God? The answer is...God! God is what is best for us. God is what’s best for others. God is what’s best for God. God is what is best!

“Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders” (Exodus 15:11)?

Here we are left with a most remarkable truth: Being a lover of God means realizing and wanting what’s best for God, namely, God! Loving Him means wanting, with all that we have and are, that God would be glorified; that He would receive the honor and fame and glory due His name.