To Love Christ

“Do you love God?,” the evangelist asked the lady. Of course she said “yes.” Not too many would say “no,” especially around other people.

I think it would have been better for him to ask, “Do you love Christ?” Do not get me wrong. I fully believe Christ is all God and all man, for this is our very salvation. But to ask if one loves Christ might bring a point home to some: If I love Christ I need to live as He did, and that is, without sin.

Another problem is in our word “love.” Many use it quite broadly, (e.g., “I love pepperoni.”), and I am afraid distinctions in types of love are being blurred in our society.

By God’s Holy Spirit, the Apostle John had much to record about what Christ said about love as well as what he was directed to write by God. 

Christ Himself said this about loving Him (John 14:21): “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”

Think about “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me…” and compare that with what YHWH says in the following passages:

Ex. 20:6  And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
De. 5:10  And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.
De. 7:9  Know therefore that YHWH thy God, He is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;

To me, the above is just another clear proof that Christ and YHWH are One. But the main point to consider is that we are to love Him. From John 14:21 we see the following points about our love to Christ.

I. The Proof Of Love 21a

“He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me:”

In order to actually have Christ’s commandments, the context of this verse indicates Christ must be dwelling inside of us and we are dwelling in Him. That does not “just happen.” As shown in Revelation 3:20, He at first stands outside of us, but at the door of our heart, knocking, asking for us to let Him in. Logically and scripturally that means sin must no longer have a place in our lives. We have to surrender to Christ and ask Him to rule us. His vicarious Life then trains us not to sin as we die to ourself and yield to Christ.

The verb for keep{1} can convey the idea to “observe,” that is, to do His commandments. His commandments are clearly written in the Holy Bible and they are also spoken to us by His Spirit, and these spoken commands will never contradict the written Word.

While hopefully it is easy for most of us to understand what it means to do His written Word, perhaps I should give an example of His spoken Word. Let us say you are a true disciple. You go out shopping somewhere where there are shopping carts. As you walk toward a store you come across a stray shopping cart that is in a parking space. God tells you to put it where it belongs. Another example is you are awake in bed and God tells you to pray for a certain country.

By the way, this particular word for love in the Greek in this passage is agape. One of its distinctions is that it is an act of one’s will. We choose to love. For our present discussion this means that we choose to love Christ, not just the first time we surrendered to Him, but we choose to love Him every moment of every day. 

II. The Peace Of Love 21b

“…and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father…”

Before I surrendered to Christ I knew I was in trouble. Even if one could exclude God from the circumstances, I was in trouble. When I was gradually introduced to Christ by a friend who cared enough to consistently witness to me I did not like the idea I could be in trouble with God, if He existed. I revolted at the idea when my friend indicated I was going to hell. But, he was a friend indeed, for he told me the truth.

In the months just before I came to Christ I heard a number of messages by Billy Graham, whose theme during that time often touched upon the coming judgment by God. I figured if what I was hearing was true, then I was in much more trouble than what I thought I was in. If I did not get right with God I would be facing His wrath either here or after death.

Yet, glory to God, that fear of judgment, that dread of His wrath, was lifted when I surrendered to Christ. Why? Because when I, by His grace, truly loved the Son I was truly loving the Father and felt (and still recognize and feel) the Father’s love. My mind that was battered by the devil was being healed step by step and God’s peace was my rest. This was all made possible through Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross.

For those that do not know, by the time I was a senior in high school I had failed scholastically, socially, morally and in many other ways. No college wanted me. The Vietnam war awaited me. With no positive future I attempted suicide just over a month before God gave me new life in Christ.

Once I made peace with God through Christ, I was still a scholastic failure, it was no use applying to a college, I had no plans for after graduation, and the Vietnam war continued, but I had the peace of God that He will guide me every step of the way.

More than that I knew I no longer had to face the wrath of God, either here or after death.

III. The Power Of Love 21c (22-23)

“…and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”

While there have been what I feel are valid reports of Christ appearing in our time, as we consider the context and the whole of the New Testament I would say that Christ manifests Himself predominately by living through those who truly trust Him.

As He dwells in us, He will make changes to us. We might not like some of the changes at first, but each and every change is certainly good for us and produces the fruits of righteousness. This is one way by which He loves us.

And also consider verses 22-23:

“Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23  Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

Judas asked a very could question. Christ responds in such a way as to indicate that He will not be manifested to anyone unless a person chooses to surrender to the redeeming grace that God offers.

For those that truly surrender to Christ the power of true godly love is within when the saving presence of God is permitted by us to operate as an ongoing father-son relationship.

If you have never surrendered to Christ, or have done so and have left Him, I encourage you to love Christ now by yielding completely to Him. For my fellow disciples, let us all endeavor to completely love Christ.

Notes:

{1} From an electronic version of Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance by James Strong

This article is a form of a message (sermon) outline. God willing, you will find links to the actual message (sermon) sometime hopefully by March 1, 2013 at http://www.sapphirestreams.com/life/audioM.html#M233.

Holy Scripture is from the 1769 Authorized Version, but modified in some cases to update the language (e.g., “has” was “hath”) and to restore the Tetragrammaton in the OT as indicated.

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