The Immeasurable Reward of Loving Jesus
Loving Jesus is a central tenet of our Christian faith, and it is a lifelong journey of growing in our relationship with Him. For true believers, Jesus is not just a historical figure or a wise teacher, but the Son of God who came to earth to save humanity from sin and death. The Bible teaches that God loved the world so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins. Through faith in Jesus, we can receive forgiveness and eternal life, and we can experience the transforming power of His love.
Loving Jesus is more than just believing in Him or acknowledging His existence. It means having a personal relationship with Him and making Him the Lord and Savior of our lives. How do we know whether we have a deep personal relationship with Jesus? A piece of simple evidence is our regular communication with Him.
When you love someone, you want to spend time with that person, and fellowship with him or her. With God, it would be how often we really communicate with Him through prayers. Pastor John Piper said, “Prayer as a relationship is probably your best indication about the health of your love relationship with God. If your prayer life has been slack, your love relationship has grown cold.”
Another important way of showing our love for Jesus is by following His commandments and living our lives in a way that honors Him. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). This means that we must not only believe in Jesus but also live out His teachings in our daily lives.
As Frederick H. Taylor said, “Christ is either Lord of all or is not Lord at all”. Are we allowing Jesus to rule all aspects of our lives? To choose and pick what He can rule and what He cannot only means our unwillingness to give Him all of our hearts. In this case, Jesus might have to step out of our lives and leave us to our own devices. Many have gotten it wrong and tried to avoid obedience because they do not want to be “imprisoned” by it. What a tragic choice! Obedience is actually not bondage but freedom for it is the only way that God can hold our hands and lead us along this assured path to real freedom.
Jesus wants us to love our neighbors as ourselves, forgive those who have wronged us, and show compassion and kindness to those in need. Therefore, loving Jesus also means loving others as He loved us. Jesus taught us to love even our enemies and to show compassion and kindness to all people. He said, “By this, all will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). This means that we must not only love those who are like us but also those who are different from us.
Talking about loving the unlovable, I must confess that it wasn’t easy for me and my team of orphanage volunteers to take in those street children who lived on the streets of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. They were naughty, quarrelsome, thieving, and absolutely filthy with lice in their hair. They were unlike the average children who have a certain degree of innocence in them.
After spending time living on the streets, they adopted the dirty tricks of the world. At a very young age, these unfortunate children, in order to survive, had learned to be manipulative, conniving, and cunning. Some older kids in our orphanage were fighting among themselves, stealing from our orphanage, and bullying smaller or younger kids. However, despite these, the love of Jesus motivated us to continue and take good care of these children. In fact, we went on to establish two more orphanages and were able to bless over 1000 homeless children.
We must seek to build bridges of understanding and compassion, even with those who may come from different social backgrounds, disagree with us, or hold different beliefs. We live in a skeptical world that is enveloped in competition, aggression, suspicion, and fear. And all these may affect us to become prejudiced against certain professions, certain races, and certain social classes. However, when we love Jesus deeply, we will soon discover that His love is helping us to take down these barriers. He comes in to open His arms of love through our lives. This love opens a passageway for hostility to become hospitality. A zone of Agape love is created to welcome the very people we fear or doubt. As Henri Nouwen so aptly said that in this zone, “strangers can cast off their strangeness and become our fellow human beings.”
Loving Jesus is not always easy, and it requires us to make sacrifices and put Him first in our lives. But the reward of loving Jesus is immeasurable. Through His love, we can experience joy, peace, and a sense of purpose that cannot be found anywhere else.
As we love Jesus more deeply, we can also grow in our love for others and become a reflection of His love to the world. We can become agents of change and transformation, bringing hope and healing to a broken and hurting world.
In conclusion, loving Jesus is at the heart of our Christian faith, and it is a journey that requires us to continually grow in our relationship with Him. Whether we are just starting our journey or have been walking with the Lord for many years, we must always strive to love Him more deeply and share His love with those around us. Through His love, we can become the people that God created us to be, and we can make a positive impact in the world.
Here is a message by Rev Albert Kang that elaborates more about what Agape love is:
https://youtu.be/uRQ0B1Cs-RE
Here is a message by Pastor Karen Wong about the secret to tapping into God’s reservoir of love:
https://youtu.be/nFSVd-4N5MU