What Jesus Demands # 5

I have not kept up with this very well. This is only my second post about our study, and I should be on day 9 in my readings. However, today I want to share about what I have read.

WJD #5 – “Love Me”

Jesus commands that we love him. He proclaims he is God, and the greatest commandment, he tells us, is that we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength (Mark 10:30). He says that “anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37) His life (and death) was the perfect example of God’s love for us, as he told his disciples: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” (John 15:9) “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Given that a disciple is one who believes in, studies, follows, and mimics his master or teacher, and given that Jesus also commanded his early disciples to make more disciples throughout the world, it should follow that he is commanding both those disciples and the disciples to come to love as he loved. And it is obvious from both his teachings and his life that although he loved people with a greater love than ever seen before, he loved God the Father even more. Jesus’ greatest commandment was to love God, and thus to love him.

But what is it to love Jesus? Is it simply to have a sentimental attachment to an imagined character? Or is it to do as much good for the sake of God as possible? I believe the answer is that neither of these views comes close to capturing the full essence of love.

Some say that love is an action, not a feeling. They say that we are commanded to love, and must therefore act out love regardless of how we feel. Surely God commands our actions, but not our feelings. However, as John Piper points out, God (specifically through Jesus) commands us to rejoice (Matthew 5:12), to fear (and to not fear) (Luke 9:26), and that our forgiveness comes from the heart (Matthew 18:35), just to name a few. These seem to be obvious commands on our feelings. Clearly, love is not just action. It is more.

Jesus’ command that we love him is not simply a command to treat him with loving actions, but that we feel a deep attachment to him. As Piper says, he commands us to love him with “strong feelings of admiration for his attributes, abiding enjoyment of his fellowship, undying attraction to his presence, warm affection for his kinship, and strong gratitude for loving us.” These are feelings we have toward Jesus. They should be similar to (but greater than) the feelings we have for our family members and friends whom we love. Jesus commands us to love him more than our mothers, fathers, sons, or daughters (Matthew 10:37).

Our affections toward Jesus must be greater even than those toward our closest friends and family on earth. But how is this possible for a person we have never seen? The bible is clear that it is not. Jesus says “If God were your Father, you would love me.” (John 8:42) But in our sin, we do not view God as our Father. We do not love him like we love a family member. Yet Jesus came that we might become spiritual “children of God.” (John 1:12-13) It is in our being born again (Demand #1) of God’s holy spirit, our repentance (Demand #2) – turning from our sins and coming to Jesus (Demand #3) with faith and full belief in him (Demand #4) and who he is and what he has done and what he teaches and commands, that we can love him like this. Without a new heart, one born anew of God’s spirit, we cannot love Jesus like he commands. But by his grace he transforms us into people who are truly able to love and desire and delight in God. But this is not where loving Jesus ends.

Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14:16) From our feelings of love WILL come loving acts. It is only natural. If we really love a person, we do not treat them like crap. Our love overflows into actions that prove our love for the person. The actions spring from the affections. It is not as if we have the feeling of love for someone because we act out love. Rather, we act out love because we feel the love. This is what the apostle Paul meant when he said that if he has great faith and gives all he has to the poor and surrenders his body to flames, but has not love, he is nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Perhaps we don’t feel love at every single given moment. But we have been transformed by God’s grace to have deep loving affections for Christ, and we have been empowered by God’s grace to obey him and serve him as an outpouring of love.

Thus, the conclusion I come to is that loving Jesus is neither a cold-hearted, emotionally detached religion of good deeds and obligatory service or a mere sentimental feel-good emotion toward him. Jesus does not just call us to joy, nor does he call us just to obedience. He calls us to joyful obedience!! This, I believe is loving Jesus.

So to follow this demand, I must not simply seek a “spiritual high”, nor should I force myself to “serve Christ” by doing heartless good deeds. Instead, I will concentrate all my heart, mind, soul, and strength on Jesus, and from this will love as I am shown how.

“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)