Taqwa
Tying taqwā to the love of Allah is very important. Are we showing Allah that we want to be loved by Him? Are we demonstrating it by our deeds in a translatable way, that we’re not going to do anything that is going to dissatisfy His pleasure?
Imam al-Ghazālī said something very profound, “The greatest consequence of sin is not the punishment that comes with it, but the distance that comes between you and Allah.”
If we were created by God to return to Him in a state that is pleasing to Him and if He has given us everything that is
needed to do so, then to demonstrate our desire to be loved, we should show caution with things that compromise that love.
Taqwā is that constant effort and mindset that we are steering back to Allah,and the most practical way to deal with this is, that when we’re thinking about saying something that is displeasing to Allah, we stop ourselves because we don’t want to earn His displeasure. When we see something, and we don’t stare at it because we know it could earn the displeasure of Allah. When we’re about to do something that could earn the displeasure of Allah, we stop ourselves because we know that the greatest consequence is distance from Him. Indeed, the greatest way to be loved by Allah is to show we fear losing that love.
May Allah allow us to never compromise our love for Him, and may Allah entrench within us taqwā, that God-consciousness, and may Allah keep us in His favour. Āmīn.
