Loving God (Mark 12:30)

The first step in turning your life around as a Christian is allowing yourself to experience all-encompassing love for God. This is not a love that we should offer only during a weekly church service or when we cry out to him during desperate times. Rather, Jesus commands us to love God always, that at every hour our priority should be God.

While this sounds like a challenging task, focusing our love on God will allow us to experience his love and share it with others (see John 14:21–24). Loving God means freedom from the earthly desires that torment us and imprison us. Lust-filled desires for power, fame, riches and sex can distract us from the true message of the gospel. Love for God, however, can be so strong that it counters these lesser desires, setting us free for the first time.

Taken from NIV Essentials of the Christian Faith