loving God...

...is not a means to an end.

Deuteronomy 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart,
and
with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Matthew 22:37-38 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. This is the
first and great commandment.

I should not love God in order to. In order to serve Him more, in order to love others the right way, in order to behave a certain way, or in order to win a crown of righteousness. Of course these things will always following loving God,but they should never be our motive for loving God.

Loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and might should be our pursuit, it should be our one goal.

the value of the Psalms....

It's tempting to overlook the importance of the Psalms for personal Bible study. After all, the REALLY deep stuff is all in the New Testament....right??? I think that we all do ourselves a disservice when we ignore the deep truths and rich doctrine that we find within the Psalms. The New Testament is filled with important doctrine: the gospel of Jesus Christ, how the church should function, teachings on our daily walk with Christ, and much more. BUT the Psalms speak so much of the glory of God! Not that the NT ignores these things, but the tendency in my own Bible reading is to study "better" things than the person of God. How terrible! Recently, the Lord has convicted me of this and shown me the importance of the Psalms in my devotional life. Read Psalm 118 and tell me you don't have a greater appreciation for the Lord because of it!