True Love

(Image courtesy of stocksnap.io.)

Last night I had a very strange dream. My wife of over a decade said to me, “We’ve been married for a while, and things are going well. I think we’re at a place now that we can get a divorce.” To my horror, I agreed with her illogical conclusion. Quickly, I went and married a younger woman. After some time, I began to miss Lauren, and I wondered how she was doing. Running into her toward the end of my dream, she didn’t seem the least bit enthused that I had re-married.

What a bizarre dream! When I woke up, I had to process what I just went through. How devastating it would be for not only me, but for my entire family and future family to throw my marriage away at such an illogical, whimsical decision. Indeed, how more illogical can we become than when we reason, “I love you, and I’m growing in my love for you, but let’s end all that love and happiness right now just because, ok?”

In real life, I turned to my Bible. in John 14:15, Jesus tells his disciples: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” To make his point clear, he repeats in verse 21: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” To be sure that the point was explicitly and unequivocally understood, again Jesus said (in verse 23): “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.” The cherry on top comes in verse 24, when Jesus states the same thing in the negative: “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”

Point taken.

It is easy for us to say, “I love Jesus.” We can sing it, perhaps, even easier: “O, how I love Jesus.” However, what speaks the loudest and the most convincingly is when we show our love for Jesus through obedience.

Like a husband who says to his wife, “I love you,” but fails to regularly care for her needs – or the husband and wife who say they love each other, but then end their commitment on a whim, like in my dream – such “love” is empty and meaningless.

Contrary to popular opinion, loving Jesus does not mean to follow our hearts, whatever sounds good or feels good at the moment; it means to serve him through obedience to his Word.

These passages, like in John 14, balance the passages that speak of Christ’s love for us. Christ’s love for his church is perfect and pure, and his love for his church is not based on our performance. He loves us because he has chosen to raise us from our desperate position as sinners and to transform us into pure and holy creatures for his service (i.e., Ephesians 5:25ff).

While we can never earn Christ’s love through obedience (i.e., keeping his commandments), the church should always strive to demonstrate our love to Christ through obedience to him; that is, our correct response to Christ’s love is our obedience to his Word. As one author put it, “We do not love God to earn his favor; we love God because he has shown his favor to us in Christ – ‘for it is by grace you have been saved, not by works of obedience.’”

Necessarily, obedience to Christ comes through knowledge of his Word. This means we ought to cherish reading his Word, studying it, knowing it, and keeping it in our hearts. I have been very encouraged to hear some of my brothers and sisters tell me how they have been faithful to reading and studying God’s Word every day. Some of these people confessed they never read the Bible until recently, but now they are committed to it. What a challenge to each us is their testimony!

My dream made no sense; likewise, to say we love God, but to despise his Word and commands also makes no sense. Let us strive together to love our Savior through our right, obedient response to him. I pray that we would grow in our love for Christ through a greater knowledge of his Word.

Lord, please give us the desire to know you through your Word. Help us to love you and to demonstrate that love through our commitment, faithfulness, and obedience to you. In Jesus’s name, amen.