Who is Jesus? #156

Ten Things Jesus Knows About You

Your Love

To the church in Thyatira (Revelation 2:19) Jesus says, “I know your love.” He rebukes the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:4) because they had, “forsaken their first love.” How could they? How could we?

Jesus commands His followers to love Him. How do you do that? What if I don’t feel like it? That just might be the root of the problem. In today’s culture love is typically attached to a feeling. If I am not experiencing that feeling I must not love.

The agape of the Bible, the love that Jesus demands of us, really has nothing to do with how we feel. Agape means to want and work for the good of someone else. It looks at others and not self.

Our Lord also told us and the world that His disciples will be known by one strong and outstanding characteristic; love!

John 13:35

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Not only is our love for each other to be shown, but our love for Jesus is expressed in our actions and not just in the words “I love you” that might come flippantly or unthinkingly out of our mouths.

John 14:15

15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”

I don’t know if love should come easy or not, but I do know that love is something that can be seen…observed. You might say the proof of the love pudding is in the action.

O.K., we can add come kind of love for ourselves and then we have a nice three point sermon that everyone can say AMEN to and dismiss after a chorus of "My Jesus, I Love Thee." Then again maybe there is more here.

So I guess then it is possible to look like we love each other and we love Jesus without really loving each other or loving Him. Never thought about that. Is it possible that, for some reason, I might want people to think I love Jesus so I am going to act like it? I want people to think I love them so I act like it. Would someone really do that? Would someone really go to the effort to look like they love without really loving? Talk about hypocrisy!

In today's world psychologists have discovered people who are in love with being in love. It goes back to that feeling that goes along with love. I believe there are some of us who love the idea of loving Jesus and have convinced ourselves that we, therefore, do love Him. We are in love with being in love rather than unashamedly loving Him.

Is this were good old impetuous Peter was in his journey (John 21)? "Peter, do you love me?" "Well Jesus, I like the thought of loving you." Feeding Jesus' sheep would be proof and Peter eventually accepted that ministry. He did love Jesus.

Time for a check-up on self here. Am I in love with being in love with Jesus? Do I kind of like the idea of loving Jesus? Do I love Jesus? Let's not confuse one for the other. He knows which is which.