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Cover: Love God for Who He Is — one person standing by still water at first light, asking for nothing.

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Love God for Who He Is

From fear and need to real love. Come to know the God who already loved you first.

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Why do you come to God?

Maybe you learned it with a threat underneath: if I don’t love God, I go to hell. Maybe you mostly come when something needs fixing, a bill, a diagnosis, a son who won’t call. Both are honest places to start, and God meets people in both. Neither is meant to be where it ends.

This class walks one road, a step at a time:

Fear → Need → Knowing → Trust → Love

You can’t make yourself love God by trying harder to feel it. But you can come to know Him, and love grows out of knowing, the way it does between people.

  1. Why do I come to God? The honest question underneath.
  2. From fear to love. Fear can start the journey. It isn’t the destination.
  3. Seeking God, or what God gives? “Help me with this,” or “I need You.”
  4. Hard to love a God you can’t see. How anyone loves someone unseen.
  5. Knowing God changes why you seek Him. Reading the Bible to see who He is.
  6. When God doesn’t give you what you want. The Giver, or only His gifts?
  7. When you want to love God but don’t know how. Six things you can do.
  8. How do I know my love is growing? Six signs, none of them a feeling.
  9. The question to sit with. Where am I, honestly?
  10. He loved us first. The invitation underneath it all.

Ten short chapters. No prerequisite. Work them alone, with one friend, or in a small group. Each one ends the same way: something to do, with a day on it.

If you want to make your love for God visible in ordinary life, Loving God Out Loud is the companion to this class: that one is about showing it; this one is about why you come at all.

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Chapters

  1. Why do I come to God?The honest question underneath every prayer.
  2. From fear to loveFear can start the journey. It isn't meant to be the destination.
  3. Seeking God, or what God gives?"God, help me with this," or "God, I need You."
  4. Hard to love a God you can't seeHow anyone comes to love someone they've never seen.
  5. Knowing God changes why you seek HimReading the Bible to see who He is, not only what to do.
  6. When God doesn't give you what you wantDo I love the Giver, or only His gifts?
  7. When you want to love God but don't know howSix things you can actually do.
  8. How do I know my love is growing?Six signs, and none of them is a feeling.
  9. The question to sit withNot to condemn you. To show you where you are.
  10. He loved us firstThe invitation is not "love God more." It's "come and know Him."
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Have questions as you learn?

You don't have to work it out alone, and asking costs nothing. Tell us what the class raised — where to start, what to do next, or the part that didn't make sense — and we'll write back by email.

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Leading this class

For Leaders

Printables

Leader book (PDF)Everything in the workbook, plus facilitator notes, timing, and answers.Leader book booklet (11×17)Leader book booklet (A3)Tabloid paper: print double-sided, flip on short edge, fold in half and staple on the spine.A3 paper: print double-sided, flip on short edge, fold in half and staple on the spine.

How to use them

What this class is for

It is written to sincere believers whose walk with God runs mostly on one of two engines: being afraid of what happens if they don’t love Him, or needing Him to fix something. Many have been in church for decades. The class does not argue them out of either. It walks a road — fear, need, knowing, trust, love — and keeps one verse underneath every step: we love Him because He first loved us.

Let people find their own motives

The temptation in every session is to explain to the room what is wrong with its motives. Don’t. People believe what they discover far more than what they are told, and a diagnosis handed over in the first ten minutes produces nodding rather than change. The participant book is written so that nobody reads the conclusion off the page; your book carries the words for the patterns you will see, and they stay with you.

Guilt will come anyway, usually by the second chapter. When it does, answer it with the order in 1 John 4:19. God moved first, He receives people who arrive afraid or in need, and nobody is graded on where they started.

Never make asking feel wrong

A class about loving God for who He is can easily be heard as a class against prayer requests. That would do real harm. Requests are invited all through Scripture. The only question the class ever asks is where the relationship stops. If someone tells you they have stopped bringing needs to God since starting, slow down and fix that first.

The two columns run from the first session to the last

Session one begins with a sheet split down the middle: what I come to God needing, and what I want to learn to come to Him because He is. Silent writing first, sharing only by choice, and no one called on. People keep the sheet. It comes back briefly in session nine and fully in session ten, and that return is how most groups see what has moved.

Silence is part of the material

Three sessions depend on quiet: the opening sheet, the long question in chapter 9, and the prayer in chapter 10. Say beforehand how long it will last, so it feels like room rather than waiting, and resist filling it. Write alongside the group rather than watching them.

Each chapter ends with a study, and each session ends with “I will”

Every chapter has a short Discovery Bible Study bound in after it. Run it the same way every time: read twice, retell, then ask first what the passage shows about God. The next session opens by asking how last week’s commitment went, with a name and a day. If it didn’t happen, ask what got in the way, and let them choose a new day.

Short on time

The class compresses into a single overview session using chapters 1, 2, 6, 7 and 9 with the two-column activity. Use that as a taster, not a substitute; the road takes weeks to walk.

Using the two books

The workbook belongs to the participant: a short lead-in, the passage, the questions and room to write.

The leader book is the participant’s chapter plus the whole teaching and a facilitator layer for each session — timing, preparation, notes on every question, and what to watch for. Keep it open in front of you. It contains notes that are not in the participant book, so hand out the workbook, never this one.

This class

10 chapters

From fear and need to real love. Come to know the God who already loved you first.

Time needed

Per session
20 to 40 minutes per chapter; 45 to 60 with a group
In total
Ten short sessions, or one overview session

Before you lead

Work the student exercises for chapters 1 and 9 yourself, in writing, before you lead anyone through them, and be ready to say one honest sentence about your own reasons for coming to God. Read 1 John 4:7-21 several times; the class returns to it in almost every chapter. For the first session, have a two-column sheet ready for every person.

What to bring

  • A printed workbook for every participant
  • A two-column sheet per person in session one, kept until session ten
  • Pens, and a timer for the silent writing