"True love grows as a response to loveliness. The first time I saw my wife, I felt the beginnings of love for her. The more I’ve gotten to know her over the years, and the more I’ve seen of her beauty, the more I’ve grown to love her. My love is a response. Love for God is commanded in Scripture, but the command can only truly be fulfilled as our eyes are opened to see God’s beauty revealed in the gospel. The Spirit of God uses the beauty of the gospel to awaken in our hearts a desire for God. “We love Him,” the apostle John would say, “because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NKJV). Love for God grows out of an experience of the love of God."
J.D. Greear, Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary