LOVING CHRIST
LOVING CHRIST
To love Christ means to dedicate our lives to Him. It is not just an emotion. It is not even primarily an emotion. It is a decision to love the Son of God because He loved us first. And it will transform you. Loving Jesus will change your life like nothing else will.
John wrote, “We love Him, because He loved us first” (1 John 4:19). Divine love comes from God. It is His initiative. He decided to love us because He is love (1 John 4:7). There is nothing in us that makes God love us. Nothing that merits His grace. He loves us because it is His nature and we need to keep that in mind.
Many often question, “Have I been so bad that God does not love me?” Remember John’s statement: We love Him because He first loved us. Nothing we did made Him love us in the first place, and therefore our mistakes and sins do not cause Him to stop loving us. It is not what we do or did, but who He is, that is the reason for His love.
We must remember that we are loved if we are going to live a life of joy in Jesus Christ. Christ is the love of God personified. He bridges the gap between God and those of us who are His enemies, but no longer want to be. It was God’s love that caused Him to send His Son into the world to save us (John 3:16). And we must see Jesus as the expression of God’s love because He is what the Christian faith is about (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10).
We do not have to live lives of fear and worry. We can live with confidence and joy, knowing that Christ has been so good to us. That God the Father loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son into the world to save us. That God the Son loved us so much that He willingly came into the world to save us. The love of God drives out fear (1 John 4:18). Let it do so in your life by focusing on how much you are loved.
If we are in Christ, then we are in a relationship that is based on love. A more powerful love than the love of Jesus does not exist. Therefore, as we appreciate His love more and more, our love for Him will grow more and more.
Dedicate your life to Jesus. You have probably heard that expression many times. But what does it mean? It means that we are to devote ourselves to loving Jesus.
That’s right. Being a Christian is, properly understood, nothing more or less than loving Jesus Christ with all of our hearts. If you love Him, everything else will fall into its Christian place in your life.
Jesus said that life is about loving God supremely. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). It is about putting Him first. And those who love Him this way are honoring the love of God and honoring Him with their lives.
You cannot “go too far” with loving Jesus. It is impossible to “get carried away” with it. Radical love for Jesus will change your life and make you into the person that you need to be. It is the source and foundation of a truly spiritual life (Matt. 22:38; Deut. 6:5).
How do you know if you love Jesus? The most obvious way is in whether or not you want to please Him as Lord of your life. Jesus said that those who love Him will obey Him (John 14:21). It is an established scriptural fact that you cannot claim to love Jesus if you do not live your life to please Him.
So if we love Jesus, we will let Him direct our lives (Deut. 11:1). That is as basic as it gets. Make it your goal to do what He wants in your life rather than what you want (Matt. 10:38).
Bryan Dewayne Dunaway
