LOVE GOD AND DO WHATEVER YOU PLEASE - ST AUGUSTINE

    St. Augustine once said "Love God and do whatever you please". This statement seems to be confusing because one will wonder, can one be justified if one loves God and still live a life not worthy of a child of God? Can we say that all that is needed to be holy is simply to love God? Yet this seems to be what St. Augustine is implying. Does it mean that if I love God, then I can fornicate, lie, steal, kill, commit abortion and I am safe? To better understand this confusing statement, I think its better to understand what it means to Love God. 

    Practically, most people except a few who seem to be so ignorant to the extent of deceiving themselves, will admit that they love God. More so, no one will accept that he does not want to go to heaven except the atheists who deny the very source of their existence. If this be the case, and following what St. Augustine said that we should just love God and do whatever pleases us, then, everyone that is not an atheist and admits to love God irrespective of his way of life will be justified. Nevertheless, this is not the case, neither was St. Augustine wrong. The very meaning of the love of God is expressed in this very words of Jesus,

"If you love me you will keep my commandments. Whoever holds my commandments and keep them is the one who loves me; and whoever loves me will be loved by my Father and I shall love him and reveal myself to him. Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make a home in him" (John 14:15, 21, 23).

    Thus, we can see that the love of God does not lie in admitting that we love God but in doing the will of God. Jesus teaches that anyone who loves him, He and the Father will make a home in such a person, how then can one do what is displeasing to God when God has made his home in him? If the Love of God implies doing the will of God it logically implies that once you love God all your actions will be within the scope of the will of God, so even if you do whatever you like, it will still be within the will and pleasure of the Father.

    More so, the love of God purifies all our actions. If you give help to the needy, visit the homeless, and do all the other good works that you can think of, even though all this can be praiseworthy on their own or when done for any other purpose apart from the love God, nevertheless, it is best and most glorious when done for the love of God, because when done for another intention, the reward is there immediately but when done for the love of God, our Father in Heaven will reward us. 

    What is the Love of God? it is simply striving to do the will of God, in dryness and in fervor, in sickness and in health, in danger and in security, in life and in death.

 

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