3 Signs God Is Trying to Increase Your Love for Him

1 John 4:10-19

God always wants the best for us. Therefore, since God knows that he himself is the best, God’s primary desire for us is that we love him most of all. Here are 3 common signs that God is actively seeking to increase your love for him for your good and his glory.

I also wanted to quickly remind those of you who are interested in AGW University that the enrollment deadline is less than a week away. For more information about my relationship training courses for Christian singles and the one-on-one email coaching with me, you can click here to learn more.

1. If God Is Increasing Your Knowledge About His Love for You, This Is a Sign He Is Also Seeking to Increase Your Love for Him

The Bible is very clear that God is the initiator in our relationship with him. In John 6:44 Jesus said that no one can come to the Father unless the Father himself draws that person to him. We can do nothing good in life without God empowering us to do it. But how does God enable us to love him more?

According to Scripture, God empowers us to freely love him more by awakening our understanding of his love for us. For as 1 John 4:10-19 states:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. . . . And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. . . . We love because he first loved us.”

The more we comprehend and believe through faith that God deeply cares for us, this will create a response of love in us.

2. If You Are Being Persecuted for Your Faith in Jesus, God Is Using This for Your Good

Persecution is a sin by those who do it, but God in his sovereignty can even use what was meant for evil for good (Genesis 50:20). When Christians are persecuted for their faith in Jesus, God will use this trial to increase their love for him. Notice what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. It states:

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The world will try to insult you because of your love for God. They will try to outcast you as a way of trying to discourage your passion for Christ. And at times, the world will even try to physically harm you as a way of silencing the gospel you proclaim. But God will use all this for our good. As Romans 8:28-29 teaches us:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

Jesus was persecuted, and when we are persecuted (John 15:18-27) God uses these trials to shape us more into the image of his son, which then allows us to have a greater ability to love God more.

3. God Will Increase Your Love for Him By Allowing Deep Voids to Form in Your Life Which Only He Can Fill

Nothing causes confusion and doubt in people’s hearts about the love of God more than pain. When life gets hard and things are not as they should be, the natural reaction that spills out of our soul is, “Why God? If you truly love me, why are you allowing this?”

But God’s ways truly are higher than our ways. While pain can cause us to doubt God’s love if we begin to lose faith, when we keep trusting God even when life doesn’t make sense, it is then that God will actually use this pain to increase our love for him. Notice the chain of events that leads to more love filling our hearts as outlined in Romans 5:1-5. It states:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Romans 5:1-2 starts by teaching us the amazing truth that we have peace with God through faith. We have been saved because of his grace. It is at this point that we would imagine our lives to be perfect since we are now connected to God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. But that is not the case. In Romans 5:3-5, we are then taught that God will use suffering to produce maturity in us, ultimately leading to more love for God filling our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So if you are experiencing a deep void in your heart or you have a huge unmet desire in your life causing you to suffer, remember this truth given to us in Romans 5:1-5. God loves us immensely, and through the trials we go through, God will actually increase our love for him for our good and his glory.

Are you a Christian single person who would like a greater clarity on how to glorify God in singleness while also giving yourself the best chance of receiving the blessing of a godly marriage one day? If so, I created AGW University specifically for you. Here’s what one my recent students said:

I just want to say how much this course has been a true blessing to me as I was able to finish it just about two weeks ago. Many of the classes have taught me about the idols in my life as I wanted to pursue a godly marriage one day. I have confessed those sins that I did not fully understand until your course about idolatry. The courses Heart Check and Marriage Material have really changed me.” -Joshua

The deadline to enroll is this Sunday, November 24^th at 11:59pm (EST). Click here to learn more.