Why I Stopped Telling God I Love Him

"I love You." 

When I was younger, these three simple words often rolled off my tongue easily to the Lord. I would often say them when the He did something amazing in my life, during worship or when I had an emotional response to the goodness of God. Meanwhile, I was doing as I pleased, reading what I felt like, watching what I felt like and operating on minimum commitment to the God I claimed to love. After the harsh experience of backsliding and then returning to the Lord, I became much more reluctant and much more measured in the things I say to Him. I have truly learned that my words mean nothing if my actions speak contrary to what my lips utter. As I have journeyed with God, I've understood more and more that He desires obedience over my lip service. He is more pleased when I make a vow and keep it than when I proclaim emotional "I love you's" and then disobey Him. For so long I refrained from saying those words to God. I wouldn't sing them in songs either because I knew my life was saying the opposite of what I would be singing. I was unwilling to obey Him and this wasn't just in matters of overt sin. I was not prepared to say "yes" to the call of God on my life and I couldn't declare my love for Him and say "no" to His commands. The Bible says in 1 John 5:3, "In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome." I don't want you to think that this was some distant dilemma and I have "arrived". This is something very present. I am constantly at war with my flesh to believe what God says and to obey Him in the small things as well as the big. I hope that you don't misinterpret this blog post. I'm not telling anyone to refrain from verbally expressing their love to God. This is something personal to me. My aim in sharing this is to spark introspection so that you ask yourself, "Do my actions declare my love for God or are my words the only indication of my love?" My mouth was speaking words that my actions couldn't verify, and what broke my heart was that I knew I wouldn't want anyone to do that to me. I wouldn't want someone to tell me they love me and then ignore me or tell me they love me and then hurt me with their actions, so how much less, a Holy God? I pray, not that we stop declaring our love for God, but upgrade our commitment to match our words. I speak these words not only to you but to myself first and foremost.