The Questions:
• What can youth workers do to help kids develop a deep, passionate, transformative and lifelong love for God?
• How can worship time lead to true connection with God?
• What can you do when your love for God has grown cold?

We are commanded to love God in the Old (Deuteronomy 6:5) and New (Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30 and Luke 10:27) Testaments. In fact, Christ says this is the greatest commandment, but notice how the Bible phrases it: We are to love God with all our “heart, soul, and strength/mind.” The Hebrew concept of heart means the innermost being, and while it does include emotion, it is so much broader than to what our Western culture has limited it. The word heart in Hebrew carries with it the concepts of understanding and volition, the will to act. Combined with the Hebrew concepts of soul, which does not mean an immaterial being, but your whole self/being, and strength, which carries the concept of diligence, the complete meaning of loving God has very little to do with emotion.

So, I believe the questions above are really the wrong starting point, for every question that is posed above contains elements that beg the question (i.e., it assumes love for God is emotional, which is not the correct starting point when thinking about youth and their devotion to the Lord).

We have lost this in Western, evangelical Christianity and our people, especially our youth, have become dependent on a feeling type of Christianity. If we don’t feel close to God, then we must not be close to Him. Repeatedly throughout the Bible, beginning with the oldest book, Job, we are told notto base our relationship with God on emotions or feelings, but rather trust in His grace and goodness and faithfulness (see especially Romans 8:38-39).

The Bible likens our relationship to Christ as a marriage (Ephesians 5:31-32). In a marriage covenant, each party promises to leave and cleave to love regardless of the circumstance. I promised my wife when we married that I would love her even when I didn’t feel like loving her (i.e., I still act lovingly with kindness, compassion, devotion and service).

The same is true of our relationship with God. When we feel distant from God, we must keep on with the basic spiritual disciplines of Bible study/quiet time, prayer and meditation on Scripture, fellowshipping with other Believers, etc.

C.S. Lewis, the great apologist of the 20th century, wrote about this in his book, Mere Christianity. “…people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?’ When you found the answer, go and do it.”