Editorial November 26, 1979 Issue

What it means to love God

NATHAN A. TALBOT

Deep within every individual is a potential and powerful love of God. Some understand the significance of this love. They let it govern their actions. For others this natural feeling appears dormant, unrecognized. But sooner or later all of us find a love of God surfacing.

What is it that finally draws this feeling out? What fosters the natural urge to love God? Jeremiah glimpsed a fact that leads us toward an explanation: "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love."^{Jer. 31:3;} The Epistle of John completes the answer: "We love him, because he first loved us."^{I John 4:19;}

God does love each of us. He cares for us, provides for and sustains us. Throughout history people have sensed this fact. They have turned to and worshiped God because intuitively they realized that a power beyond themselves was responsible for their ultimate well-being. The love people have of God has a profound bearing on their whole direction in life, on the very substance of their lives. "What we love determines what we are,"^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 270;} writes our perceptive Leader, Mary Baker Eddy.