Responding to wondrous love

Last week we concentrated on God's wondrous, (to be marveled at, according to the dictionary definition of wondrous) love for us.
What should our response to that love be? We discussed His amazing commandment, and how we should emulate His unmatched, sacrificial love for those undeserving of it (us).

How about our relationship with this loving God? What should our response be to Him?

What can we do?
And then, when we've done that, what more can we do?
Let me explain what I mean..... I do NOT mean that there are any works we can do to deserve His wondrous love. We've covered that before, so as my grandma used to say, we don't need to re-plow that ground. (Grin)

BUT.
When we accept His wondrous love, it should light a fire! Look at what Paul tells us:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. (II Corinthians 5:14-15)

Whatcha think about that word, "compel"?
Merriam Webster: "to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly," for example, "Hunger compelled him to eat."
Wow.
Paul is highlighting the fact that because of Jesus' love, and what He did for us, there should be a response. If we understand the love behind that sacrifice, and we truly understand our opportunity to escape depravity here on earth, and destruction in eternity, then we will be compelled.  Oh, it may take a while for us to really grasp the depth of what He did for us....to understand that what He went through is something that no one could have done for us.
We've been rescued.
Adopted into the family of God.
That should light a fire in us that drives us to do everything we can to please Him!

Forcefully.
Irresistibly.
Out of a sense of duty, or obligation?
Nope.
A fear of the consequences of our refusal?
No way.
Our devotion, our love, our obedience need to well up from our love for God. If it is from any of those other reasons, it will be a "flash in the pan."
Here's what I mean: many, many years ago, those upstart colonists here in what came to be called North America used flintlock muskets. Those guns had tiny receptacles that held charges of gunpowder. Any attempt to fire the musket in which the gunpowder flared up, but no round was fired, was called a "flash in the pan."  Prospectors later used the phrase to describe something in their pan which glinted momentarily, but proved not to be real gold.
Either way, if our devotion to God is motivated by the wrong reasons, our obedience and our fervor will be short-lived....it won't result in any real value as far as service to Him......it'll be a flash in the pan.
There is a contemporary Christian song that says these words:

“Give me rules, I will break them. Show me lines, I will cross them. I need more than a truth to believe, I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes; to sweep me off my feet. It's gotta be more like falling in love, than something to believe in. More like losing my heart, than giving my allegiance. Caught up, called out; come take a look at me now. It's like I'm falling; it's like I'm falling in love.Give me words, I'll misuse them. Obligations, I'll misplace them. Cause all religion ever made of me was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet. It never set me free. It was love that made me a believer in more than a name, faith, or creed. Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me.” (Jason Gray)

There's truth there: our response to God needs to be based in our love for God. We don't need to question His love. We don't need to worry about that. He has loved us from the beginning. What we need to be looking at is this: what is our response to Him built on? If it is built on anything other than love, it won't stand the test of time.
Are we Christians just to escape the flames of hell?
Are we believers because of what we think we can get from God?
Do we think God is great until life gets tough, and then we wonder if we want to continue to serve a God Who allows these things to happen?
If any of those are true, our relationship with God is based on feelings.
Not our real, grateful, loving response to His wondrous love.
Love doesn't change with varying circumstances. It's constant. We might not like our circumstances, and we might even be upset with God over them! But if we love Him, then we will stay with God, because we know He loves us all the time.
We will love what God loves, and hate what He hates. We will be zealous for the cause of Christ, and we will have that fire lit within us to love Him and tell others about Him.
Perhaps each of us should examine our lives in our quiet time, and make certain that our response to Him is motivated by love.....the "right" response to His wondrous love.