Without loving God, are we truly saved?

Deu 11:13  And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

Deu 11:16  Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them;

Mat 22:36  Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Mat 22:37  Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Mat 22:38  This is the first and great commandment.

1Jn 4:7  Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

1Jn 4:8  He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

Recently I watched a video about a Christian woman who had a life-changing encounter with a being from hell.  In her testimony she shared the stark reality of the hopelessness, deep sorrows and constant torments of hell that were revealed to her during this encounter.  She pleaded with her audience that if anyone had been resisting God as she had been doing previously, now was their second chance to respond to Him and receive His salvation so freely given.  She said something else that literally jumped out at me and I have been thinking about it ever since. She said that only the ones that love God will make it to heaven. The ones that don't love God won't make it into heaven.  She mentioned to the effect that people may go to church and tithe and do all kinds of good works, but this won't be enough for them to get to heaven.  I agreed with her that being a Christian has to be more than head knowledge.  Our hearts have to change. In fact, we need to be completely transformed, or "born again" of the spirit, as Jesus teaches in John 3:3-8.

This born-again experience is not a mechanical one!  Something truly remarkable happens! Our lives change completely! Why? Because our hearts change!  We have a new spirit and a new life for the first time ever.  Our sins are washed away and we are no longer guilty before God!  This is the work that HE does, and we realize that we have no ability to do that on our own by good works or deeds. What does a new life and a new heart look like?  It means that whatever good works we attempt to do (and want to do) are done out of love for God and our fellow man, and not because we are trying to earn our way into God's good graces.  We realize grace has already been freely given and we have done nothing to earn it whatsoever!! Jesus paid our price!

Okay then, so what happens after awhile if we feel that we no longer truly live our new life out of love for God? Maybe many things have gone wrong in our lives and we have become disillusioned and bitter.  We don't feel God's love, and we don't feel like loving God or others any more.  Perhaps we have become too busy, not spending time with the Lord in prayer or in His Word. Our hearts have become cold, hardened, and closed to God and to receiving from Him.  Are we still saved and going to heaven?  Scripture indicates that there is only one unforgivable sin that will never for all eternity be forgiven and that is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32).

Does that make not loving God okay?  Certainly NOT!  If we don't love God, this is a serious violation in breaking His most important commandment!  If we don't continue to love God, we will stray so far off course and away from Him it will be as if we never knew Him in the first place! That is a very dark and lonely place to be, my friends.  Look at Jesus' rebuke to the church at Ephesus:

Rev 2:4  Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Rev 2:5  Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Wherever we are at today in our walk with the Lord, if our hearts have become hardened or cold, we need to repent.  This week I have shed a lot of tears for falling so short in loving God.  I have no excuse whatsoever.  He has to come first above everything else no matter how busy I become.  What does it mean to love God?  It means that we worship and adore Him above all else.  It means that we love righteousness and justice and His Word and we hate evil and everything that is contrary to what He calls good.  We love Him and we love all people no matter what, but we do it out of a heartfelt love for Him and not out of a religious ritual we mechanically perform.

I would like to direct you to two books I have written that go into much more detail about the heart and about loving God.  One is a short book called When Love is All There Is.  The other is how to walk in victory throughout the many temptations in life:  Victory OverBacksliding.  They are both available as eBooks on Amazon.ca.