Why does a person decide to follow Christ? Is it only because we come to realize that He is a fire escape, or is it because we truly love Him? If the former, then our "love" for Him is half-hearted at best. This may be understandable in the new Christian, but as we continue to experience his grace, mercy, and care for us over the years surely our heart attitudes must change into ones of a purer love and adoration. If not, perhaps it is time today to really examine our feelings for the one we call our Savior.
So then in the beginning man loves God, not for God's sake, but for his own. It is something for him to know how little he can do by himself and how much by God's help, and in that knowledge to order himself rightly towards God, his sure support. But when tribulations, recurring again and again, constrain him to turn to God for unfailing help, would not even a heart as hard as iron, as cold as marble, be softened by the goodness of such a Savior, so that he would love God not altogether selfishly, but because He is God? Let frequent troubles drive us to frequent supplications; and surely, tasting, we must see how gracious the Lord is.
--from On Loving God by Bernard of Clairvaux
