Our Best and Strongest Love

A paraphrase from the works of Richard Sibbes on Love Toward God.
There are four imporant outcomes concerning our love toward God:
1. Our highest esteem and value is for Him
2. It causes a desire to be in Union and Communication with Him
3. It produces peace due to His perceived Power, Love, and Wisdom
4. It generates a desire to please Him in all things.

So there is first in every Christian a high esteem for God and of Christ; he chooses Him above all things, and commends Him to all. Secondly he desires to be united to Him, and thus, there is communication by means of hearing the Written Word and prayer. Thirdly, he places his contentment in Him alone, because in his worst conditions he is content if he may just have His countenance shine upon him. Fourthly, he seeks to please Him because he labors to be in such a condition that God may delight in him as he delights in God.

As our love therefore is the best thing we have, and none deserves it more than God, so let Him have our best and strongest love, that we may love Him with all our hearts, minds, souls and might. When we give our best affections and love to lesser things (and everything is less than Him), it is like letting a clear, sparkling stream run down into a sewer. He requires and desires our best and strongest love.